Here - EnglishAgenda - British Council

experimental class outperformed the control class (F(2, 116) = 4.002, p= .021).This, of course, could be attributable to the power of the online materials but itcould also be a consequence of the extra learning time this class were given, theirextra exposure to English or of a match between the tasks in the tests and those inthe online materials.The results of the student questionnaire revealed that nearly all of the studentsconsidered that MEC helped them improve their English. However, most of them did notwant to have an online component in their conventional learning. The analysis of theinterviews revealed that the compulsory use of the online materials, the design of theprogramme and lack of print materials were important reasons for students’ discontent.Blending face-to-face teaching with an online programme as supplementary canbe used to improve the achievement of students studying English as a ForeignLanguage (Al-Jarf, 2004; Al-Jarf, 2005; Bañados, 2006; Pazio, 2010). Teachers canassign complementary resources to students to improve their learning and engagethem with English outside the class. Incorporating online tools such as an onlineLMS and authentic materials like articles and podcasts in class can foster studentlearning. However, the interview results indicated that students valued print materialsover purely online resources in their learning, which suggested that students mightprefer to have paper materials over purely online ones when studying. It seemsthat as we mostly assume that students of our time are technology oriented, wemight mistakenly take it for granted that they will appreciate online materials readily.Stracke (2007) suggests that there is a need to carefully plan a blended course,providing students with comprehensive teacher and document guidance.Therefore, when we are designing a blended course, we should fine-tunethe balance between the online materials and paper-based materials.If students use an online programme for the first time, it will take some time forthem to get used to it. The way students are used to studying should be takeninto consideration. In a report on the Hybrid Course Project at the University ofWisconsin, Aycock, Garnham, and Kaleta (2002) indicate that ‘students don’t graspthe blend readily’. They also indicate that many of the students don’t perceive timespent in lectures as ‘work’, but they see time spent online as ‘work’, even if it is timethey would have spent in class in a traditional course. In this study, the compulsoryuse of the online programme was one of the reasons for student discontent. It seemsthat although students today are very technology oriented in their daily lives, theymay not be as eager in their learning.This study offers some insights into blended language learning by showing a groupof Turkish university upper-intermediate level EFL students’ engagement in aparticular online commercial LMS as part of their courses. The results indicate thatteaching English blending face-to-face teaching with an online LMS can be beneficialover solely in-class teaching, by providing an extensive range of authentic materialsas well as a more learner-centred medium of instruction, which can complementclassroom-based activities.210 | Students’ CALLing