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input and answer questions that had been written for each clip. Ideally, studentswould have attended actual lectures in English; however, this was not practical inEgypt. Furthermore, as it was difficult to find university lectures that related to thecoursebook on YouTube, other talks were included that did connect.The YouTube links and classroom audio were used to complement each other. Theclass work enabled students to develop their note-taking skills collectively and payparticular attention to transition signals and keywords to help with understanding.The physical presence of the teacher helped to support and encourage studentsbefore and in between activities. Furthermore, students were prompted to assisteach other by sharing what they had understood from the audio. From a teacher’sperspective, they appeared more confident with this face-to-face interaction andwere encouraged by receiving instant feedback on their answers. Nevertheless,the online element added to this provision for different reasons. Firstly, the videosprovided flexible revision opportunities with students being able to stream ordownload them in their own time. They allowed the learners to focus on their ownneeds as they could individually replay sections of the video or revise skills fromparticular lessons. In addition, they added authenticity to the course becausewhile the classroom recordings gave students valuable listening practice, theywere non-visual and presented little opportunity to understand from body language.Actual live lectures would have been the ideal provision but as this was impossible,the video-tasks were perceived to be more visually realistic than the classroom tasks.As Richards (2005: 6) says, such authenticity is advisable in any listening activity.With respect to methodology, a learner-centred blend was designed that wouldencourage autonomous self-motivated personalised collective learning. As Arnoldand Ryan (2003) say, if teachers ‘…are less shackled by the need to provide studentswith access to knowledge, their skills in pedagogy can be directed towards higherlevel thinking abilities, and developing a climate of positive, enthusiastic learningcontexts in which rigorous intellectual work can flourish’.The role of the teacher was therefore that of facilitator. In terms of the classroomwork, this involved encouraging students to work more autonomously by adoptingeffective strategies and promoting collaborative discussion. The expectation was thatlearners would primarily rely on themselves and each other and the teacher would bepresent to elicit and help motivate when necessary. With respect to the online work,the teacher posted initial questions and provided learning material but participatedin a more removed way to encourage students to take greater charge of their ownlearning. When interaction fell, messages were posted to initiate more involvement.Despite this, communication was encouraged rather than forced because of thedesire to promote self-motivated learning. As evidence indicates, learner involvementin wikis tends to be more meaningful when they themselves choose to interact(Azizinezhad and Hashemi, 2011: 869).Lessons learnedThe following information was obtained through teacher reflection, student feedbackfrom post-course questionnaires and informal comments throughout the project.A blended learning approach to soft skill training | 203