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Creating a blended Delta
Module One

Sally Hirst and Tom Godfrey

The context

This chapter explores the evolution of a blended teacher training programme at
a teacher training centre in Istanbul. International Training Institute (ITI) has been
delivering the Cambridge ESOL training courses to teachers in Istanbul for more than
20 years. These courses have evolved over the past five years from a traditional face-
to-face format to one which incorporates and utilises online resources to the extent
that some elements and some participants rely on them exclusively. The addition
of online elements came initially from administrative demands for more systematic
communication between tutors and participants, and as a method of submitting and
storing participants’ work. As trainees are located throughout the vast metropolis of
Istanbul (15 million inhabitants) face-to-face contact has become less practical, but
what was initially a reactive solution to practical problems has become the realisation
that through blending we can provide an educational experience that is better
tailored to individual need and offers greater ‘intimacy and access’ (Stager 2005:1)
with regard to contact between teachers and tutors. The course, Delta Module One,
that we describe in this chapter has evolved into a programme that caters for and
integrates the experiences of participants following the course purely online with
those attending (more or less of) a traditional face-to-face format course that has
online support. Participants negotiate the course depending on their location, access
to resources and learning preferences. What they do is paramount, how they do
things is sometimes important, but which technology they use to do them (and even
at times whether they use technology at all) is often a matter of choice. There can
be (and have been) anything from five to 50 people on any given course in varying
proportions of blended and fully online. The combination and interaction of ‘real’ and
‘virtual world’ participants is, we believe, a unique element of the course making it
blended in several senses (omniblended).
The course evolution

The Delta Modules are designed and produced by Cambridge ESOL and form part of
a framework of teaching awards for teachers of English. The Delta is divided into three
modules, and is aimed at experienced, practising teachers in a variety of teaching
contexts (e.g. adult, primary) and is intended for an international audience of both
non-first language and first language teachers of English. Module One of the Delta is
gained through an exam which assesses the participants’ knowledge base with regard
to the background to teaching and learning English in terms of an understanding of
language, methodology and resources. Entrants are required to analyse information

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