Page 50 - BLENDED LEARNING

Later in the course of the academic year, students are asked to pay attention to
more advanced points of essay content/organisation/style. To help them make their
comments more substantial we read and discuss the comments they give to each
other, so that gradually they become clearer and more specific.
Every effort is made to ensure that each student in the group receives some
feedback on their work. It is stressed that working in the wiki students receive a
greater level of responsibility: the students are not only responsible for themselves
but also for their peers. Sometimes this is a difficult aspect of the course instruction
which some students struggle with for quite some time during the course.

In accordance with the course requirements, in addition to publishing their own
works each student is required to comment on a work published by at least one of
their peers.
Some common activities and exercises
One of the first activities the students are offered is to share their experience in
writing an essay or some other kind of work when discussing the question of the
stages of the writing process in the beginning of the academic year. They are asked
to describe their approach to writing an essay and share some insights into it, as
well as some difficulties they can encounter with their peers. They also need to
read at least one reflection written by another student and comment on it. This way
the students are first introduced to one of the common activities in which they will
participate regularly throughout the course.

Among the exercises the students are offered to complete are student-generated
exercises. To start using them on a regular basis, the teacher first creates a
worksheet with common errors students made in a particular piece of work and
publishes it in the learning environment, for the students to discuss and correct the
errors. Later on in the course, the students are asked to create their own worksheets
for their peers based on the analysis of their own common errors. This way they
are able to recycle the material with which they have problems several times, and
to help each other along the way. Judging by the results of the end-of-the course
survey, the majority of students found peer-generated exercises quite interesting to
complete and rather useful as regards the improved level of grammar and vocabulary
knowledge they were able to achieve by the end of the academic year (Nstudents
= 27; approval rate 3.8). It can be considered quite a positive result considering the
fact that the students’ prior experience is to a very large extent teacher-centred.
Contextual challenges
When taking the course offered in the described mode the students face several
kinds of challenges, some of which are associated with learning to write itself and
others with the mode in which the course is delivered.
Challenges of learning to write are probably common to the majority of learners
working on the development of their writing skills, such as formulating the topic for
their essay, developing it with adequate support, and organising their ideas logically
and consistently. Another challenge on the writing side is connected with the students’
ability to write their works at an adequate level of grammar, vocabulary and style.

A blended English as a Foreign Language academic writing course | 47