Here - EnglishAgenda - British Council

Comments on Part 3Brian TomlinsonOne of the obvious advantages of using a blended learning approach to designingEnglish for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses is the affordance it gives for localisingand even individualising the courses. Each course at a centre can benefit from acommon store of language and activity input but can be tailor-made for specificclients, specific client courses and specific time allocations and, as a course developsit can be modified to allow individuals to work at their own pace and in relationto their own preferred learning styles, time available, needs, wants, problems andinterests. At the same time each individual’s output can be made available (withpermission) for other students to benefit from and for different individuals withshared needs to collaborate in mutually beneficial projects. This sort of localisationand personalisation is what the courses reported in Part 3 achieved. It could possiblyhave been achieved face-to-face but to do so would have demanded great trainerskill, considerable investment in time and riches of resources beyond the means ofmost of the institutions concerned in the projects reported.Another obvious advantage is that many ESP students on a course are busy workingmost of the week, are geographically dispersed, cannot always be released at thesame time and do not have a lot of time available to work with other members of thecourse anyway. In such cases online modules can obviously help to overcome logisticalproblems as well as offering such pedagogical benefits as individualised feedback andfocus plus the opportunity to recycle material and activities many times.The courses reported in Part 3 varied considerably in the percentage of coursetime allocated to face-to-face approaches but all of them were agreed that aface-to-face component was needed partly because of the learners’ prior learningexperience and expectations, partly because the face-to-face mode is the bestway of achieving a team and community spirit and partly, in some cases, becauseit was considered that instructors could best introduce, demonstrate and answerquestions on new technologies if they were able to interact with the learners live.Most courses favoured starting with a face-to-face mode to establish understandingand co-operation but some actually use it as their prime mode throughout thecourse. This is another important reminder that the face-to-face mode should betreated as an important element of blended learning courses and should not beconsidered as a necessary but undesirable adjunct to the superior approachesoffered by new technologies. This needs to be remembered, especially by coursedesigners who are in danger of being seduced by technologies they enjoy usingthemselves, and by administrators who mistakenly think that online delivery ofcourses is always much more cost effective than face-to-face delivery.Comments on Part 3 | 185