Gi-Zen Liu
7. Utilize Project-based Learning to Enhance Language Learning Transfer
This principle is effective when students engage in team-supported, project-based learning. All the instructors encouraged their students to explore more informa-tion about the topics they were considering in order to have more opportunities to transfer the acquired language into similar situations in their daily lives or into new study areas.
Recommendations for Future Research
Due to the rapid development of ICT and its impact on language learning and use (Graddol, 2004), “digital natives” (Bennett, Maton, & Kervin, 2008) and adults will learn to be multilingual in various workplaces and learning organizations in an increasingly globalized context. However, to make BLL more effective, we may need to undertake ethnographic research at the level of the individual in order to identify the relationship between computer and user, including both instructors and students, and also to conduct action research in individual contexts to discover problems and their related solutions (Bax, 2003). Therefore, I hope interested BLL researchers and language teachers (e.g., Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, French, and EFL) will apply the seven principles presented in this chapter and further refi ne them with research evidence (Becta, 2004).
The Blended Language Learning Course in Taiwan 95
Conclusions
The seven principles presented in this chapter cover the four levels of integrating ICT into English teaching and learning in educational institutions. However, there are still some challenges and concerns to which we need to pay attention when developing and promoting ICT integration in language teaching and learning, or blended language learning. With emerging ICT such as “context-aware ubiquitous learning” (Hwang, Tsai, & Yang, 2008; Liu & Hwang, 2010), BLL will remain a continuously evolving research topic (Stracke, 2007) and thus needs a process of professional development (Lawless & Pellegrino, 2007) as hybrid courses are likely to become the norm within a decade (Mayadas et al., 2009).
Finally, more formative research is required in order to realize the specifi cs of how-to-do education in long-term studies of soft technologies to better exploit hard technologies.
Acknowledgement
This work is partially supported by the National Science Council in Taiwan (NSC 96–2411-H-006–030, NSC 98–2631-S-024–001 and NSC 98–2511-S-006–003-MY2).
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FIGURE 8.5 The Sequence of the Integrated Instructor Guidelines for Teaching EFL based on the Three Communicative Modes (Liu, 2003)
Appendix A
FIGURE 8.6Integrated Model for Teaching EFL in a Hybrid Course based on the three communicative modes (Liu, 2003)
Appendix B
100 Gi-Zen Liu
Comment
This chapter is very future-focused and anticipates a time – perhaps within ten years – when hybrid courses, or blended language learning, will be the norm.
Gi-Zen Liu brings together several years’ work to identify the principles that should inform the creation of ICT components in effective language learning courses. These principles are particularly relevant to format and presentation deci-sions, and have been arrived at through several cycles of evaluation. This iterative feature is typically a characteristic of robust curriculum design processes.
Tasks
1. Gi-Zen Liu proposes seven principles to apply to the introduction of ICT into language learning courses. To what extent do these principles differ from principles you might apply in a face-to-face teaching situation?
2. This chapter takes the view that hybrid courses will be the norm in the rela-tively near future. Consider your current teaching and learning situation, or one with which you are familiar, and whether hybrid courses are the future.
a. To what extent is ICT currently incorporated into language teaching?
b. What factors in the environment favor greater use of ICT in the future?
c. What factors in the environment inhibit greater use of ICT in the future?
Introduction
The focus of this chapter is on the Monitoring and Assessing component of language curriculum design. Many language teachers around the world are in a situation where the way in which their students are assessed is strongly infl uenced, if not completely determined, by external authorities such as the Ministry of Education, an examinations board or the administrators of their school. This can lead to the phenomenon of washback, where teaching and learning activities in the classroom concentrate on what the students need to do to pass a major external test or examination, rather than on the full range of learning objectives set out in the curriculum (Nation and Macalister, 2010, pp. 116–117). However, university teachers in countries like New Zealand have more freedom to plan the assessment of their courses in keeping with the principles of good curriculum design being exemplifi ed in this book. Ideally, course assessment should be an integral component of curriculum planning, so that there is a direct relationship between the goals of the course and the criteria by which each student’s achieve-ment in the course is judged. Assessachieve-ment has a signifi cant role not just in the fi nal result but also in monitoring learner progress during the course.
Given the embedded nature of assessment in the classroom, it is necessary to cover various aspects of the course design to provide a context for discussing the assessment procedures. The course we focus on here is ESOL 102, Academic English Listening and Reading, a fi rst-year course for undergraduate students at the University of Auckland. It is one of a suite of six courses offered to students for whom English is an additional language, in order to enhance their study expe-rience by developing their academic language skills. It is important to emphasize that this is not a remedial program. Like the other courses, ESOL 102 is for students who have been admitted to the university and who receive full academic