Case Study: A blended undergraduate course in Ecuador

Jose Lema What is the context of the course? This is a blended program for undergraduate students of the Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador. Students take six levels of general English at the A1/A2 and B1 levels of the Common European Framework as part of their undergraduate degree program in the School of Education. The course is divided into two modes of delivering content: the face-to-face one, and the one that makes use of technology. For both modes the institution works with the Four Corners series (FC). In each level the students cover six units of the FC coursebook. The blended part of the course is carried out using the institutional Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Moodle. The use of Moodle is intended to support students’ learning through delivering, expanding and providing additional English practice. What are the goals of the course? The main goal of the EFL blended course is to allow students to be able to master all four language skills - listening, speaking, reading and writing making use of a variety of language communicative strategies. In order to accomplish this goal the institution uses language learning standards similar to the ones designed by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) . Thus, the expected outcomes after concluding each of the six levels: ̵ the first and second levels will equate to the CEFRL A1 or elementary: students can deal with

very limited day-to-day activities. ̵ the third and fourth levels will equate to the CEFRL A2 or lower-intermediate: students can

deal with predictable day-to-day activities. ̵ the fourth and sixth levels will equate to the CEFRL B1 or intermediate: students can deal

with varied familiar everyday activities. What planning was involved in developing the course? To comply with graduation requirements the university offers a variety of foreign language courses to its different schools and departments. English language classes are taught -on-campus, on a daily-basis and mainly in the traditional face-to-face form. Likewise, some programs and many subjects are now being delivered in a blended form: face-to-face sessions are supported, expanded and complemented through the use of technological platforms such as Moodle. The blended English language teaching program has been designed to meet the needs of part-time students who are taking their major in education. The course was jointly-developed by a staff member from the English language department and the university department of new technologies. Both departments have worked together to develop a sound teaching model that addresses the delivery of face-to-face instruction in conjunction with the institutional VLE Moodle. How is the course organized? The ELT blended course is organized over one fifteen week semester. The course has six units and each unit is planned to be delivered in two weeks. During those two weeks students attend two sessions and work on the VLE platform. Since the VLE allows to include plenty of reading

and writing activities, in the face-to-face sessions there is an emphasis on practicing and developing verbal communicative skills. The online work comprises: interactive activities (online workbook, self-study CD-ROM activities and tests, portfolio); written and oral tasks. The organization of the course is as follows:

Inside each unit there is a topic of the unit, four subtopics and four learning outcomes. Moreover, each unit includes: grammar points, vocabulary development, functional language descriptions, listening and pronunciation exercises, reading, writing and speaking tasks.

The blending of the course relies on a number of self-study guides to be studied and completed using the institutional VLE Moodle. The self-study guides have been designed to explain, expand and practice content. Together they serve to manage assignments and grades; start discussion forums; embed videos and podcasts; manage email; organize online chats; and hand over feedback. The organization of the platform attempts to work in an integrated way so that the different academic components of the course such as the topics, vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading, writing, etc., are relevant, related and intertwined. The organization of the online self-study guides is as follows:

Each self-study guide shares the following format:

What teaching and learning methods do you use? The blended program combines classroom sessions and online lessons and activities through the institutional VLE Moodle. The course is designed to enable learners to interact effectively with others in English in a variety of communicative situations. Students are given as many opportunities as possible to share ideas and experiences individually, in pairs and group work both in classroom sessions and online lessons. The progression of tasks in each unit allows students to relate what they have learned to their own experiences. An inductive approach is applied, in which the content is first presented in context. Learners are encouraged to observe, compare, and analyze in order to identify the use of vocabulary and structures. Students are also presented with targeted exercises that ensure comprehension of the content. In each unit, the four skills are covered for reading, listening, speaking, and writing plus vocabulary, grammar structures and pronunciation. What is the role of materials and other resources? The blended English language course uses the materials supplemented by the coursebook. It includes different components that are used throughout the course. (See the chart below). Depending on the objectives of the lesson, the different components may be used in the classroom, for online exclusively, for autonomous learning and to be used with a VLE platform. The chart below shows the materials and its different uses:

Teachers and students may benefit from the Internet and the massive amount of information that can be used and adapted for the teaching and learning of specific content or autonomous extended practice. Teachers may even create their own materials to be used in class and online. A list of examples for online resources and teacher-developed resources are described in the chart below:

Did you experience any difficulties in developing the course? Developing a blended course such as this has raised a number of issues connected to four different factors. 1) The institutional factors involve dealing with internal administrative procedures that affect the decision-making of specific and vital choices. Consider the following example: when new teachers join the blended program they may know how to teach using technology, however due to the demanding of using more advanced techno-pedagogical procedures more teacher training is required. The institution may lag at this since the organizational framework is not always flexible and teachers are faced to deal with the new challenges by themselves. 2) The teacher factors comprise issues with teachers obliged to meet the demands of a blended teaching environment. Since the majority of teachers have been used to teaching in the traditional form without much consideration of using ICT tools, some teachers ended up feeling alienated and overwhelmed after enduring blended teaching practices. In the blended program described above many teachers found themselves bewildered not only to the fact that they need to be technological literates but also realizing how to deal with state-of-the-art techno-pedagogical content knowledge required for this type of courses. 3) The teaching factor issues focus on uncovering a sound teaching model and principles needed for blended language instruction. Phil Hubbard (2009) alleges that much of the language teaching using technology has been ‘atheoretical without any specific theory or framework’ and when there is the need to have an underlying basis for using technology there has been either a ‘simple theory borrowing...without any changes’ from general education theory and teaching practices. Or, ‘theory adaptation’ where ‘Theory is modified or enhanced to accommodate the differences inherent in the computer versus the face-to-face environment’. In our blended program the

teaching issues and challenges lie more on the technological teaching side than the face-to-face one. Using technology and not having crystal clear boundaries for the teacher roles, the instructional materials, teaching activities and procedures certainly may cause a negative impact on the program. Furthermore, as in any other language teaching program a comprehensible model will allow accomplishing good teaching blended practices, thus it requires an ongoing evaluation of blended practices and procedures. 4) Finally, the issues connected with students hinges on learners getting used to using technology as a powerful source of information and learning. Thus, some learners may find themselves puzzled not only dealing with language learning but also figuring it out how to use technological gadgets and novel teaching procedures such as asynchronous or synchronous learning. What role does assessment play in the course? Similar to other ELT programs assessment and evaluation procedures are a fundamental element in the blended language teaching curriculum. In this course, different formative and summative assessment procedures were implemented. Formative assessment methods aimed to check or collect information on linguistic or communicative performance that allow to monitor students’ learning. For example, during the face-to-face sessions the use of informal assessment strategies are widely used, e.g. interviews, role-plays, observations, comprehension questions, etc. And, on the VLE platform, the use of screenshots and screencasting procedures are intended to provide feedback through images, and video. In conjunction with summative assessment procedures aimed to evaluate the students learning at the end of each instructional unit: e.g. for the face-to-face sessions - written and oral quizzes and online tests or projects for the technological component. The following is an example of providing ongoing assessment using a screencasting feedback tool: (Screencast-O-Matic)

Jose Lema is a M.A. in TESOL teacher and consultant in the School of Languages at the Catholic University and the Army University ESPE in Quito, Ecuador. He has been interested in developing teaching language procedures using technology and teaching a wide variety of ELT courses. Jose is currently interested in researching about blended teaching and the use of technological apps and software in the ELT classroom, and he has written recently and collaborated with some academic articles for Cambridge University Press book ”Key Issues in Language Teaching” (2015).