Blended language learning: An effective solution but not without its challenges

Abstract

The Laureate English Program (LEP), in collaboration with Cambridge University Press (CUP) and other partners, has rolled out a blended learning solution for Laureate International Universities (LIU) network institutions of higher education over the last five years. Since 2008, as a result of these partnerships, over 40 LIU institutions have committed to initiating a blended learning approach to EFL.The LEP-CUP collaboration has now fully implemented this approach and offered these universities a viable approach to overcoming the deficiencies of face-to-face (F2F)-only or online-only programs previously in place. Feedback from these institutions indicate, however, that in many instances students still do not engage sufficiently with the online components of the new blended courses to make adequate use of the extended time for learning English promised by a blended solution. This second phase of collaborative research looked to LEP teachers for insights into how this trend might be relevantly addressed. Following upon recently completed doctoral research, an interview-based study was conducted with 30 teachers from 3 different continents to gather qualitative data on the topic. Initial findings show that progress has been made and that teachers are tackling student reticence with some degree of efficacy, but important challenges remain.