Here - EnglishAgenda - British Council

■■■■Cambridge ESOL was reporting significant demand for a more flexible versionof CELTA.Other teaching awards were already deliverable fully online or in a blended format,such as the Distance DELTA.The new blended programme would help consolidate Cambridge ESOL’s competitiveadvantage over other English Language Teaching (ELT) awarding bodies andreinforce CELTA’s status as the qualification of choice, by bringing CELTA firmlyinto the technological age and by reaching candidates in geographical areas notpreviously provided for. The blended CELTA would introduce new ELT professionalsto online learning, empowering them to take advantage of other online courses andeducational technology in their continued professional development. The principlesbehind this project have been outlined in the literature on blended learning:1. Most writers on the subject, Garrison and Vaughan (2011), for example, describeblended learning as combining the best of face-to-face and online approaches,achieving coherence by integrating the strengths of both. Sharma and Barrettcontribute that it is ‘potentially greater than the sum of its parts’ (2007: 7) whileBersin comments that blended courses ‘extend the classroom “people-centric”experience in space and time’ (2004: 12). In the words of Thorne: ‘it representsan opportunity to integrate the innovative and technological advantages offeredby online learning with the interaction and participation offered in the best oftraditional learning’ (2003: 2).2. Glazer notes in broad terms that blended learning supports many of us who arealready embracing technology and leading ‘blended lives’ (2012: 1). IncreasinglyELT is involved and in tune with technology and course participants will find theyhave the opportunity to experiment with computer-mediated communication andvirtual learning environments in their own teaching post-CELTA.3. There is emphasis on exploitation of readily-available technology, Littlejohn andPegler, for example, writing: ‘Blended e-learning offers the possibility of changingour attitudes not only as to where and when learning takes place, but in terms ofwhat resources and tools can support learning and the ways in which these mightbe used.’ (2007: 2). Hofmann adds that with blended learning, institutions andindividuals can minimise costs, maximise technology and increase instructionalvalue: ‘The tools are in place to support blended learning’ (2011: 2) and ‘there isa push to take advantage’ of resources already invested in technology’ (ibid. p.1).Bonk and Graham (2006) also refer to the cost advantages, stating that blendedlearning opens up the possibility of running courses with a small number ofparticipants.4. Glazer focuses on another efficiency benefit: ‘blended learning creates time’(2012: 4), echoing the point made by Sharma and Barrett that course participantscan ‘continue working and take a course’ (2007: 7).5. Sharma and Barrett also make the point that ‘the use of technology outside theclassroom can make learners more autonomous’ (ibid. 11) and this is somethingbeneficial for a CELTA trainee, both for the tutors and for trainees themselves,112 | The Cambridge CELTA course online