Blended learning model to develop professional communicative competence in a Business English Course for graduate students of non-linguistic universities

Blended learning model to develop professional communicative competence in a Business…

their success in acquiring communicative competence in the target lan-

guage is not easily obtained.

Blended learning can help to solve this problem in many ways. Firstly,

it enables learners to work away from the classroom and increase substan-

tially the amount of time they study English, which is especially relevant

to non-linguistic university students. Some of the activities, like listening

and writing can be done online in self-access mode. Peer-review and other

similar student-to-student activities increase independent work and raise

motivation for learning. Secondly, the Internet provides lots of opportuni-

ties for creating learning communities via social networks. Students’ be-

havior in a traditional classroom can be completely different from that

online and teachers can take advantage of this by encouraging discussions

in forums and blogs. Adding a comment to a thread set up by either a

teacher or student can be a mandatory course requirement or an optional

one. However, some students might find it off-putting if they are forced to

do activities online, so a teacher must be very sensitive to learners’ needs

and expectations. Thirdly, blended approach is ideal for learner-paced sys-

tem, as it enables each student to follow optimum learning path and covers

for individual differences of learners. They can practice as much as they

need to develop the necessary skills. Fourthly, there is a very good oppor-

tunity for extensive input of materials, which is facilitated through face-to-

face contact in the traditional classroom, where teachers can provide the

necessary support and assistance to learners who have some troubles with

acquisitions of the material. And finally, blended learning approach helps

to develop skills in professional communication, which requires extensive

use of technology (presentations, video-conferencing, e-mail, etc.). Incor-

porating technology in teaching Business English is a good way to im-

prove students’ IT literacy, on the one hand, and make them more pre-

pared for efficient communication in business environment through task-

based activities.

Conclusion.

A successful

combination of traditional and online teach-

ing can be quite beneficial for both students and teachers provided the in-

structor applies the right strategies to course design and meets the learners

needs and expectations.

REFERENCES

[1] Garrison D.R., Vaughan N. (2008)

Blended learning in higher education

. San

Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

[2] Canale M. (1983) From communicative competence to communicative language

pedagogy. In: Richards J.C., Schmidt R.W., eds.

Language and Communication

New York, Longman.

Gunina N.A.,

Ph. D. in Linguistics, associate professor, head of the Department of the

International Professional and Scientific Communication at Tambov State Technical

University (TSTU). e-mail:

natalya_gunina@mail.ru