Psycho-pedagogical approach to blended learning as a mode in ELT

Barkasi V. V., Filippyeva T. I.

Анотація

mixed education european

Баркасів. В., Філіпп'єва Т. І. Психолого-педагогічний підхід до змішаного навчання як способу викладання іноземних мов

У статті обґрунтовано можливість упровадження змішаного навчання як моделі сучасної методики навчання іноземним мовам. Розглядається концепція єдиної європейської освіти, згідно з якою об'єднані в одне ціле стандарти навчання, моделі освіти і цілі викладання для створення єдиної загальноєвропейської системи освіти. З метою приєднання та використання цієї загальноєвропейської схеми необхідно внести модифікації у систему освіти України. Аналізується думка українських педагогів, у якій відображається наступна ідея: враховуючи сучасний стан рівня доступу до Інтернету, наявність обладнання та програмного забезпечення для приватних осіб і навчальних закладів, можна використати рекомендовані методи змішаного навчання у навчальних закладах України.

Ключові слова: Болонський процес, викладання англійської мови, змішане навчання, концепція єдиної європейської освіти, модульне об'єктно-орієнтоване динамічне навчальне середовище.

Аннотация

Баркаси В. В., Филиппеьва T. И. Психолого-педагогический подход к смешанному обучению как способу преподавания иностранных языков

В статье обосновывается возможность использования смешанного обучения как модели современной методики обучения иностранным языкам. Рассматривается концепция единого европейского образования, согласно которой объединены в одно целое стандарты обучения, модели образования и цели преподавания для создания единой общеевропейской системы образования. С целью присоединения и использования этой общеевропейской схемы необходимо внести модификации в систему образования Украины. Анализируется мнение украинских педагогов относительно следующей идеи: учитывая нынешнее состояние уровня досту- па к Интернету, наличие оборудования и программного обеспечения для частных лиц и учебных заведений, возможно использовать рекомендуемые методы смешанного обучения в учебных заведениях Украины.

Annotation

The formulation of the research problem. The concept of common European education is formulated in Sorbonne and Bologna declarations. Due to this concept teaching and learning standards, educational models, and teaching objectives are brought together with the aim to create the common all-European educational system. In order to join this all-European scheme Ukraine needs to make modifications in its educational system.

Blended learning is considered as the dominant instructional mode in higher education. This paper aims to analyze and evaluate all the pros and cons of blended learning system as one of the opportunities to modernize the Ukrainian system of education and make some conclusions and recommendations as for the introducing different pieces of this technology to ELT instructors, regardless of their level of experience with the technology under discussion.

The basic material research. Many prominent native and foreign scientists, psychologists and methodologists conducted a lot of research and experimental work studying the educational possibilities and psychological effect of blended learning as for teaching foreign languages. We may mention such names as M. Abushaeva,

I. Antonova, T. Anderson, L. J. Ausburn, B. Barrett, T. K. Christensen, B. Dodge, C. Dziuban, J Hartman, R. Garrison, T. Ivanchenko, H. Ka- nuka, N. Kobzeva, E. Koptelova, A. L'vova, J. MacDonald, D. Nunan, S. Omarova, P. Sharma, D. Tapscott, K. Thorne, B. Tomlinson, C. Whittaker, V. Zvihzinsky, and others.

In this paper we analyze the design and implementation of such a course created and approved by Professor B. Tomilson, the Founder and President of MATSDA (the Materials Development Association), and Dr. C. Whittaker, the Head of Learning and Teaching at Bell. The Blended Learning in ELT course under consideration is designed for practicing classroom teachers. The aim of its developing is teachers' understanding of the potential of blended learning for the development of English language skills [6].

The authors distinguish three elements of the course delivery. The first element is a tutor moderated course which is delivered online on the basis of the Moodle learning management system platform (group with moderator). Moodle is a highly flexible, free software, open source learning platform. It can be used to create a private website for dynamic online courses possessing comprehensive, customizable and secure learning management features.

The material is delivered in some units each of four to five tasks. The tasks may incorporate Web 2.0 type tools adding an element of social interactivity. The participants also get experience of using the same tools as learners which they will then use as teachers to construct learning. The most popular tools are: Tricider https://tricider. com/, MailVu http://mailvu.com/, and VYou http://vyou.com/.

This element also has built-in study resources which include links to related online journals and blogs, embedded video clips of lectures, talks and presentations from various web-based sources, and custom- made video tutorials to help develop digital skills. These tools help to provide background reading and a theoretical perspective.

The first element is developed around learning tasks. These tasks vary from exploring recommended background reading and viewing, researching different types of web-based tools and creating learning activities and materials for the participants' students.

The aim of these tasks is to reflect on them and share their reflections with their peers in online discussion forums. Though the work is tutor-moderated when the tutor stimulates discussion and interaction, draws participants' attention to salient points and additional reading and resources, and summarizes discussions, the main focus of the interaction is peer-to-peer,

The second element is a face-to-face workshop (group with workshop tutor). The time of the element «face-to-face» is limited, so the initial online part of the course is designed to prepare participants.

This element is much more workshop based. The tutor acts as facilitator and technical support. As the participants develop their technical skills and pedagogical understanding he helps them to develop their own materials.

The third and final element of the course is a self-study element. It is based around the completion of two to three written assignments (individual participants with tutor). It is the more academic part of the course. This element gives the participants the chance to reflect on their learning and build up their background reading on the basis of their practical experience and understanding.

The course is aimed at English language teachers. The participants should already have some grounding in technology and materials design and want to take their understanding of technology beyond the classroom activity level. They also want to investigate the potential of blended learning for the development of complete courses. There is no limit as for the number of participants for the online element of the course. As for the limit for the face-to-face element of the course it is around 20.

Active learning tasks in the units are the basis of the core content of the online course. They call upon the participants to engage with the materials, try to apply what they are learning within the context they work and to reflect and share their reflections with their peer group but they are not simply reading or viewing tasks.

The online reference materials are given in a non-prescriptive way. The range of references and recommended reading draws on ELT websites, blogs and online resource sites as well as online journals.

Participants are completely immersed in their work. Through directed reading they critically evaluate what they read and assess its relevance to their own context. This gives them the opportunity to share their reflections with their peers within discussion forums.

A powerful argument in favour of this approach is that it allows more inclusively and at the same time critically study online published literature.

The specificity of a fast-moving field of ELT is determined by the fact that traditional paper-based reading sources are often out of date by the time they are published. So participants should develop the kinds of digital literacy skills and digital study skills within the core online course tasks, the skills are those their own students would need to be successful online learners.

Many of the tasks focus on helping participants to develop sound information management and knowledge sharing strategies facilitated by online tools such as RSS readers, social bookmarking and micro-blogging platforms.

RSS (Rich Site Summary), originally RDF Site Summary (The Resource Description Framework), often called Really Simple Syndication, uses a family of standard web feed formats to publish frequently updated information such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, video. An RSS document is called «feed», «web feed», or «channel». It includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date and author's name.

Social bookmarking allows users to store and retrieve any links to useful online articles or resources they find. As specialists in this field point out social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages.

Microblogging is a broadcast medium that exists in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregated file size. Microblogs «allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links» [3].

A very important aspect of the learning process discussed is con- nectivism which is provided by the socially interactive nature of the tasks. G. Siemens in his work «А Learning Theory for the Digital Age» outlines some of the main principles of connectivism: Learning and knowledge rest in diversity of opinions. Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. Nurturing and maintaining connections are needed to facilitate continual learning [5].

Creating the initial element of the course online enabled the integration of a number of web-based Web 2.0 type social tools as well as much greater integration of social networking, collaborative creative tasks and multimedia elements within the course.

T. Woodward considers that the blended learning course is a form of a `loop input', a «style of experiential teacher training process that involves an alignment of the process and content of learning» [7, 301-304]. So, the blended learning course helps the participants develop understanding of blended learning approaches and methods based around the content focused on blended learning methodology which gives them experiences similar to those their students will have as learners.

An online medium as part of the blended learning course gives participants some experience of online learning on which they could then reflect. This helps teachers to understand the strengths and limitations of the medium in a way that could not be achieved in the face- to-face classroom alone.

We may speak about a lot of advantages of taking a blended learning approach to the course as opposed to doing the course completely face-to-face. Some of the most valuable advantages for teachers are:

- the extension of the period of learning over a far greater timescale than would be possible with face-to-face teaching;

- learning in their own teaching context, trying things out with their own students;

- gaining first-hand experience on which they can reflect while approaching and understanding theory.

- making much better use of the face-to-face time thanks to a good level of technical knowledge and sound experiences during the first online block of the course;

- accelerating the bonding process that groups generally go through during the initial stages of a face-to-face course.

The conclusion

Having analyzed the theoretical and practical groundwork of the blended learning and ELT teachers' guidance to teach applying this technology we come to the following conclusions:

- both face-to-face and online courses can be problematic for the development of teachers' techno-pedagogical skills:

- face-to-face courses are to be too short to develop the degree of balanced critical understanding that is necessary for the effective use of technology;

- online courses are too theoretical with teachers lacking the practical guidance and experience.

- the blended learning structure of the course is employed to address these areas:

- teachers have the opportunity through the online course to get to know potential uses of technology;

- teachers have the opportunity to employ their insights within a more practical face-to-face workshop environment.

- the online element of the course is Moodle-based, so it can easily be edited and kept up to date.

- digital artefacts and teaching resources produced by each cohort within the course can be archived and shared and be the basis for the development of new materials for later cohorts.

We share our Ukrainian educators' point of view that «taking into account the present state of level of the Internet access, availability of hardware and software for individuals and educational institutions, it is possible to use the suggested ways of blended learning in educational institutions of Ukraine» [4,197-200].

The main condition of providing such a model for teaching foreign languages is ELT teachers' understanding and skills development in the sphere of blended learning and their ability to teach according to its rules.

Список використаних джерел

1. Azemi A. Teaching Electric Circuits Using a Modified Flipped Classroom Approach. - Режим доступу: https://csdl.computer.org>csdl/ proceedings/fie/.

2. Kaplan Andreas M. «The early bird catches the news: Nine things you should know about micro-blogging». 2. - Business Horizons, 2011, 54(2), P. 105-113.

3. Kumar S. What is Social bookmarking?/ S. Kumar. - Режим доступу: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/online-promotion/what-is- social-bookmarking. html.

4. Shunevych B. Foreign language blended learning at higher schools in Ukraine / B. Shunevych, 0. Musiyovska // Computer science and information technologies: proceedings of the international conference (September 28th-30th, Lviv, Ukraine) / Lviv Polytechnic National University, Institute of Computer Science and Information Technologies. - Lviv, 2006. - P. 197-200. - Bibliography: 11 titles.

5. Siemens G. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age/ G. Siemens. - Режим доступу: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ connectivism.htm).

6. Tomlinson В. Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation Brian Tomlinson and Claire Whittaker (Eds.). London / B. Tomlinson. - England: British Council, 2013. - P. 252.

7. Woodward, T. «Key Concepts in ELT: Loop Input» ELTJ, 2003, 57/3: 301304. - Режим доступу: http://chiasuanchong.com/tag/loop-input/).

Spysok vykorystanyh dzherel

1. Azemi A. Teaching Eletstrits Tsirtsuits Using a Modified Flipped Tslass- room Approach. - Rezhym dostupu: https://tssdl.tsomputer.org>tssdl/ protseedings/fie/.

2. Kaplan Andreas M. «The early bird tsatches the news: Nine things you should know about mitsro-blogging». - Business Horizons, 2011, 54(2), P.105-113.

3. Kumar S. What is Sotsial bookmarking?/ S. Kumar. - Rezhym dostupu: http://www.artitslesfatstory.tsom/artitsles/online-promotion/what-is- sotsial-bookmarking. html.

4. Shunevych B. Foreign language blended learning at higher schools in Ukraine / B. Shunevych, 0. Musiyovska // Tsomputer stsientse and information technologies: protseedings of the international tsonferentse (September 28th-30th, Lviv, Ukraine) / Lviv Polytechnits National University, Institute of Tsomputer Stsientse and Information Technologies. - Lviv, 2006. - P. 197-200. - Bibliography: 11 titles.

5. Siemens G. Tsonnetstivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age/ G. Siemens. - Rezhym dostupu: http://www.elearnspatse.org/Artitsles/ tsonnetstivism.htm).

6. Tomlinson B. Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Tsourse Design and Implementation Brian Tomlinson and Tslaire Whittaker (Eds.). London/ B. Tomlinson. - England: British Tsountsil, 2013. - P. 252.

7. Woodward, T. «Key Tsontsepts in ELT: Loop Input» ELTJ, 2003, 57/3: 301304. - Rezhym dostupu: http://chiasuanchong. tsom/tag/loop-input/).

Стаття надійшла до редколегії 01.02.2015 року.

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