Here - EnglishAgenda - British Council

Facilities and available technologyThe course took place in a classroom at the taxi association. There was a whiteboard,a projector and screen, and wireless internet access. All students had mobile phones,and internet at home.The syllabusThe syllabus was based on functional and emergent language (for example, providinginformation about the fare, offering assistance) with only brief grammar explanationsrelated to the context and usually as a summary at the end of a lesson or topic.The contentAs there was very little time for me to prepare the course, I did some researchonline to find ready course material like coursebooks or videos with short dialoguesbut there was not much there, other than a few useful phrases. Therefore, I decidedto structure the course around the typical stages of a taxi ride – from when thepassengers get into a taxi until they are dropped off. I wrote a few sentences whichI, as a potential passenger could think of, for each stage and also used some phrasesI found on the internet. I planned to have the taxi drivers add more sentences anddevelop the dialogues fully. I was the English language expert but they knew muchbetter what kind of conversations take place during a ride.At certain intervals, I asked students to create new dialogues from what we had doneso far in order to review the language. They recorded these on their mobile phones,sent the files to me and exchanged them among each other for feedback in class.Blended approachI took a blended learning approach for this course, which will be described indetail below.Why a blended approach?A thoughtful blend of synchronous and asynchronous communication and integrationof tools can enhance learning (Garrison and Kanuka, 2004).Situative perspectiveIn the above context, the situative perspective of learning (Mayes and de Freitas,2007) fits very well. It states that the socio-cultural setting influences the learningand the learning outcome (ibid.). According to this socio-psychological view, ‘learningmust be personally meaningful’ (ibid.: 18). The activities should be ‘authentic to thesocial context in which the skills or knowledge are normally embedded’ (ibid.).This is certainly the case with my taxi driver students, with strong personal tiesbetween co-workers. They have been a learning community (ibid.: 19) for many years,helping each other learn the trade and now learning and practising English together.As stated above, they derive motivation from the fact that the course content ismeaningful and immediately applicable. This is also ensured by their contributions132 | Blended learning: podcasts for taxi drivers