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7A case study of blendedlearning: The ‘CommunicativeAssessment – Developmentof Testing Skills’ projectKeith O’Hare and Xu BoBackgroundIn 2010, the British Council in China decided to use a blended learning approach fora training course to develop testing skills, targeting test-writers and key teachers insecondary schools in certain cities and provinces across the country.Whilst it could be argued that all learning is blended, through the use of anycombination of instructional modalities (Bersin et al., 2003), such as videos or books,or instructional methods (Driscoll, 2002), such as problem solving or case studies,this was the first time the British Council in China had attempted combining onlineand face-to-face instruction.This article outlines why we decided to take this approach, the challenges we metand the learning points of this training project, with particular reference to blendedlearning. As will be seen, the socio-cultural and educational context of China playsan important role and may be of interest for other organisations working in so-called‘Confucius-heritage’ contexts.The needIn the Chinese teacher education system, teacher researchers (responsible forwriting higher-stake tests) and key teachers (responsible for writing lower-staketests, and for supporting other teachers in their schools and neighbourhoods) aregiven little formal training in how to write tests. Tests are often written by teacherresearchers drawing on their experience as a student or novice teacher whenteaching was largely based on a grammar–translation approach, and so teststend to reflect that approach.Thus, with the backdrop of a new national curriculum that encouraged communicativeteaching and learning of English, a clear need was identified to train this group of testwriters in the basic skills to develop communicative tests that had a positive backwashon teaching. They needed knowledge of the latest theories of assessment and itsrelation to testing and teaching, skills development (to write better tests), and achange in mind-set to believe that a different type of test would be beneficial forthem, their teachers and their students.Reversing the blend: From online to blended | 83