Page 217 - BLENDED LEARNING

Introducing Macmillan English Campus
One way of meeting the changing needs of learners was to shift some of the learning
to a different medium and opt for an approach that includes technology. In this
context, additional features had to:

■ ■ be available 24/7
■ ■ be easy to access and straightforward to use
■ ■ provide opportunities for interaction between learners and teachers
■ ■ cover a range of skills
■ ■ offer opportunities for review
■ ■ provide plenty of enriching activities of good quality without overburdening
the teachers.
Therefore, a blended learning solution, i.e. ‘a language course which combines a
face-to-face (F2F) classroom component with an appropriate use of technology’
(Sharma and Barrett, 2007: 7) seemed worth considering. The combination of
synchronous and asynchronous learning was one way towards making language
learning more flexible.

Contextual limitations
Unlike most language schools, Volkshochschulen offer their courses at a number
of locations spread across the city, thereby facilitating access. Most courses are
held on school premises, i.e. in classrooms originally laid out for classes of 25–35
pupils aged 11–19. Teachers are allowed to use the blackboard/whiteboard in
the classroom and temporarily change the seating arrangement. Classrooms are
equipped with CD players, but the schools’ IT firewalls prevent internet access
even via the teacher’s notebook.
Volkshochschulen have some buildings of their own which they can use for teaching,
but a rather low proportion of courses are held there. These tend to be courses that
require special equipment, such as arts and crafts, music, or computing classes.
This does not leave much space for language teaching on the premises.
Moreover, Volkshochschule teachers work on a freelance basis, i.e. they are paid by
the teaching hour. Asking them to work on an online component for their courses,
to devise quality material and update it regularly, and to supervise the platform as
well as their learners would be demanding too much, and would ultimately lead to
questions of remuneration. What would happen if someone prepares a component
for a course that ends up being cancelled? How do you remunerate the hours spent
creating an online component? Furthermore, content used by a number of classes
has to be developed and updated regularly, and its quality has to be checked
as well. How do you deal with issues such as quality control and copyright in
these circumstances?
At first glance these conditions appeared to argue against introducing a technology
strand to the classroom. In order to make multimedia teaching feasible, the institution

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