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Table 1: Taxonomy of terms related to blended learning (Smith and Kurthen 2007,in Gruba and Hinkelman 2012: 4)TermWeb-enhancedBlendedHybridFully onlineDefinitionSubjects that make use of a minimal amount of online materials,such as posting a syllabus and course announcements.Subjects that utilise some significant online activities in otherwiseface-to-face learning, but less than 45 per cent.Subjects in which online activities replace 45–80 per centof face-to-face class meetings.Subjects in which 80 per cent or more of learning materials areconducted online.In relation to ELT, Dudeney and Hockly (2007) also use percentages to differentiatebetween online courses, blended language learning courses, and face-to-facelanguage learning courses with additional online materials (for more informationsee section below entitled ‘ELT blends’). Despite these perceived differences I wouldargue that many of the terms are synonymous and that in ELT ‘blended learning’ isthe term most commonly used to refer to any combination of face-to-face teachingwith computer technology (online and offline activities/materials).From a corporate perspective, Singh and Reed (2001: 1) describe blended learningas being ‘a learning program where more than one delivery mode is being usedwith the objective of optimizing the learning outcome and cost of program delivery’.They do not expand on what the delivery modes are in their definition, yet a moreexplicit definition from Valiathan (2002: 1) suggests they may include ‘face-to-faceclassrooms, live e-learning, and self-paced learning’. Reid-Young (n.d.) also providesus with a set of delivery modes which differ slightly from Valiathan’s (2002) and‘may range from classroom sessions to mentoring arrangements or the supportof a subject matter expert in the same office or area.’With reference to blended learning in higher education, it has been defined as:‘a combination of technology and classroom instruction in a flexible approach tolearning that recognises the benefits of delivering some training and assessmentonline but also uses other modes to make up a complete training programmewhich can improve learning outcomes and/or save costs’ (Banados, 2006: 534).Here the lead modes are identified as technology and classroom instruction, althoughinterestingly the ‘other modes’ are not specified. This reference to ‘other modes’ isof personal interest as the blend I helped redesign had three modes, face-to-face,computer, and self-study that took place in self-access centres situated in the samebuilding as the classrooms and computer rooms, which in my opinion is atypical ofmost blends described in ELT. Similar definitions to Banados’s (2006) are given byde Gregorio-Godeo (2005) and MacDonald (2006).Unlike the definitions found for blended learning in corporate training and highereducation those provided in relation to language teaching and learning seem rathersuccinct. Neumeier, for example, describes blended learning in relation to her studyas being ‘a combination of face-to-face (FtF) and computer assisted learning (CAL)in a single teaching and learning environment’ (2005: 164). Stracke (2007: 57) offers12 | Introduction