Here - EnglishAgenda - British Council

of telecoms engineers, but it was what they voted for! However, it was throughconstant evaluation of these moves, and discussions with all stakeholders, trainers,managers, participants, and the client that we were able to innovate in a way that was‘safe’, managed and palatable.In summary, our context was key, and the stakeholders led the thinking. The technologycame only in response to client needs, exploring features in our context, while at thesame time working within trainers’ sense of plausibility. Prabhu (1990) says that thebest method is one that meets a teacher’s ‘sense of plausibility’. The teachers whoworked on this project were the ones who were most able to grasp this use of IT,and could see how this could support language learning. We set off with a generallanguage-learning pedagogy in mind, and learned as we went.Practical considerations and recommendations■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■Operate within teachers’ sense of plausibility.Seek support from colleagues, managers, and other available networks.Be open to questions about the proposed course’s learning outcomes.Be open about the business model.Seek to learn from trying to formulate answers to challenges.Place learning and context first, technology second.Create opportunities for learning.Carry out an IT audit to see if your proposed tools will run on your and yourclient’s system.Use tools in a way that create affordances for dialogue rather than just monodirectionalinstruction.Put tools in student hands as often as possible.Consider how the course will evolve and change as well as how improvements willbe decided on.We responded in a transparent way to feedback at the end of each course and toinput on needs at the beginning of each course. At the same time we had to deal withdisappointment when certain interventions were not to the standard we hoped for, ordid not reap the desired responses from participants. Each course built on the last,each time hoping to garner more positive feedback and better learning. This projectshows how a course can develop with a partner over a longer period.Final wordMore than any course I have worked on, or designed, these CBECs afforded highlevels of challenge and variety to me as an experienced and growing, DELTA qualifiedteacher, and later business manager. These challenges, which came about as a resultof contextual realities, led to my pursuit of deeper questions about teaching andlearning online that I pursued in an educational technology-focused MA. By adoptinga learning mindset, and by working closely with our partner, this experience becameA longitudinal case study of the ‘blends’ | 161