What Blended Learning Does Not Do and Should Not Be

Mandana Arfa-Kaboodvand, Uzbekistan

Mandana Arfa-Kaboodvand has a PhD in TESOL from the University of Exeter, UK. She has been a language teacher for almost 30 years. She was a university lecturer in Tehran, Iran. At present she works as a senior lecturer at Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Her main areas of interest are language teacher education, teacher development; language and culture, and teaching English to YLs. E-mail: m_arfa@yahoo.com

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Introduction and background
Dispelling some misconceptions about blended learning
Points to consider
Conclusion
References

Introduction and background

Despite having used computers, similar mobile devices and the Internet in preparing, at time conducting my language classes at different levels and even making assessments and inevitably encouraging students to do their assignments with the use of computer, I never considered any of that blended teaching/learning. It was just teaching and learning English assisted by computers/ Internet. My first serious thought about blended learning started last year when the university and the team that I am a part of decided to introduce the concept of blended learning/teaching in the Academic English module. Blended learning to us meant “a language course that combines a face-to-face classroom component with an appropriate use of technology” (Sharma and Barrett, 2007, p.7) for each single session. The reasons behind this decision were moving along technological advances in teaching, creating more enthusiasm among students, more interaction outside the classroom environment and on the whole creating a new look at language teaching and learning. Many of the lecturers were quite excited, hoping that in addition to moving along with the modern trends in language teaching and education, it would decrease the very heavy load of work that we had to do.

At our department, we agreed that each lecturer would prepare the material and the lesson plan for one or two session of the 24 seminars and share them with the other colleagues. Long before the beginning of the term we gathered and were assigned the sessions we had to prepare and agreed upon having some online material. Accordingly, many of the colleagues designed the PowerPoint slides for the seminar they had designed and put them online assuming that before each seminar the students would access them and get themselves ready for the session that would follow based on the contents of the slides. There were sometimes but not very often links to videos or other websites to be used by the students. During the face-to-face session that immediately followed the slides, we were to go over the online exercises if any. Some students would do the work, but many wouldn’t. And even though everybody was happy that some kind of innovative teaching had been adopted for teaching English for Academic Purposes still no drastic change could be seen in the workload of the teachers, the performance of the students and their enthusiasm. Of course there was no kind of assessment or even observation by the lecturer of the time each student spent online and if they did the assignments altogether.

I believe that what we did as blended learning was not as successful as it could be because it did not serve the initial purposes. Interestingly, the academic English classes were a complete success, but everybody in our team agreed and we could easily observe that that this was mainly due to what we had done in the face-to-face classes. However, we have learned a lot from the experience and now are hoping to design much more effective classes.

Dispelling some misconceptions about blended learning

Blended classes have strong advocates in modern language teaching and learning. Many studies have already acknowledged their effectiveness (Al Zumor, et al, 2013; Bekele, & Menchaca, 2008; Blake, 2011). Remembering what blended classes do not do and should not do may help create more effective sessions. Here is a list of my observations.

Blended teaching does not:

1. decrease the workload of the teachers.
2. mean that decrease the need for teachers.
3. mean that teachers of those classes are the only people responsible for the preparation of the material to be used online. (Students and other material designers may also contribute.)
4. students should use computers only as a substitute for sheets of paper /CDs. Much more should be involved.
5. automatically make learning more fun.
6. automatically make students more autonomous.
7. mean that students, when working online, will be interacting with the computer.
8. mean that at times the teacher will be substituted by a computer.
9. mean that boring material that teachers do not like to teach should be put online.
10. automatically make learning more engaging.
11. necessarily make the classes more up-to-date.
12. mean that the teachers’ free time should be spent interacting with the students online.
13. mean that no supervision is required concerning what the learners are doing online.
14. mean that more conventional ways of teaching should be forgotten about.
15. students will do all of their assignments simply because they are online and not on paper.
16. mean that teachers are responsible for learning all there is about preparing the relevant material on their own. Support may be needed.
17. guarantee that learning will take place only because now a part of material is provided online
18. mean that we should impose using technology in our classes without necessarily needing to.
19. mean in the face-to-face classes, online material should necessarily be repeated or not be repeated. This decision would very much depend on the class and the material.
20. do miracles; however if planned very well, has the potential to be a breakthrough in modern language teaching and learning.

Without considering the points mentioned above, we may jeopardise the effectiveness of blended language classes or even learning in general.

Points to consider

It is essential to consider certain points when designing the course. Many platforms such as Moodle or Edmodo are also available to create support and the right environment and support.

It is also important that the online sessions would accommodate some interaction both among the students and between the students and their teacher. The logic of having blended learning should also be explained to the students and even more importantly teachers should have a clear idea why blended learning might work for their classes. Designing appropriate and effective courses needs thinking and planning. The material developers may need to receive some training on how to design the materials and what to include and how to help students take advantage of both of the environments.

If the students are not used to autonomous learning, then they should be led and at times be closely monitored by their teachers. In order to make this happen and consolidate learning face-to-face classes are the inevitable parts of learning

Finally, when asked about the ways to increase the level of online participation of students, my students’ main feedback to me was providing some kind of incentives, such as allocating part of the final course mark to what students did online . They believed the teacher should be able to closely monitor how much time students spent on the online material and reward the students accordingly. This may work in many cases.

Conclusion

Considering the importance of blended classes in modern language classes, it is necessary to be very particular about what should be put in online sessions of the class and what should be done in the face- to-face classes. The students taking part at the blended classes for the first time should be walked through the process and should definitely be supported at least until they can reach some autonomy in their learning. All in all, if the materials produced for both online and face-to -face classes are engaging, interesting and helpful and the students are guided to use them effectively and notice the value, then the level of effective participation is very likely to increase.

References

Al Zumor, A. W. Q., Al Refaai, I. K., Eddin, E. A. B., & Al-Rahman, F. H. A. (2013). EFL Students’ perceptions of a blended learning environment: Advantages, limitations and suggestions for improvement. English Language Teaching, 6(10), 95.

Blake, R. J. (2011). Current trends in online language learning. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 19-35.

Bekele, T. A. & Menchaca, M. (2008). Research on Internet-supported learning: A review. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 9(4), 373-406.

Neumeier, P. (2005). A closer look at blended learning - parameters for designing a blended learning environment for language teaching and learning. ReCALL, 17(2), 163-178.

Sharma, P., & Barrett, B. (2007). Blended learning: Using technology in and beyond the language classroom. Oxford, UK: Macmillan Education.

Please check the Practical uses of Technology in the English Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Practical uses of Mobile Technology in the English Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.