Blended learning model to develop professional communicative competence in a Business…
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УДК 8111.11:37.02
Blended learning model to develop professional
communicative competence in a Business English Course
for graduate students of non-linguistic universities
N.A. Gunina
Tambov State Technical University, Tambov, 392000, Russia
The paper describes the concept of blended learning and its applicability to teaching
Business English to graduate students of non-linguistic universities. The benefits and
challenges of blended courses have been explored. Open access and closed technologies
have been reviewed and compared.
Keywords:
blended classroom, Web 2.0, open access technology, institutionally support-
ed LMS; communicative competence.
Introduction.
Today, most universities in Russia are faced with a
challenge of incorporating communication and information technologies
in teaching a variety of courses. This is primarily due to the rapid develop-
ment of the Internet and mobile applications, which have become a part of
our everyday life. The emergence of new ways of communication de-
mands rethinking of educational experience from a new perspective,
which can be either fully online or blended. This, of course, does not deny
traditional face-to-face method of teaching, which has stood the test of
ages and has lots of advantages. However, adding online component can
bring lots of benefits to both teachers and students. The purpose of this
paper is to explore the concept of blended learning and its applicability to
teaching Business English in non-linguistic universities.
Blended learning approach and its challenges.
The concept of
blended learning is different from fully online courses, which have been
used in higher education institutions for more than a decade.
Blended
learning
is defined as “the organic integration of thoughtfully selected and
complementary face-to-face and online approaches and technologies”
[1: 148]. Although the idea sounds quite simple, there are still lots of chal-
lenges teachers and lecturers have to cope with when it comes to combi-
ning traditional and online approaches. The main problems include the
design, facilitation, direction, and assessment of blended learning in con-
temporary higher education.
Designing a blended learning class is a challenging and complicated
task, especially for foreign language instructors. A teacher must be fami-
liar with the technology and develop useful planning strategies. This in-
cludes selecting and dividing the content so that it suits best either face-to-
face or online environments. Lack of experience in online course design