Creating Effective Blended Language Learning Courses A Research-Based Guide from Planning to Evaluation

Blended language courses, which combine face-to-face and online instruction, are becoming increasingly popular due to the need for more flexible yet effective learning opportunities. This book recognizes the associated opportunities and challenges for teachers, and provides the rationale, strategies and tools to design blended learning courses or to guide the transition from fully face-to-face or fully online courses to blended instruction. The authors propose a framework based on four phases, Design, Build, Teach and Evaluate, which facilitates a systematic approach to course development. The volume simplifies the connection between theory and practice, by including examples that readers can relate to and immediately implement as they build or teach a course. Including case studies of successful implementations, and effective instructional strategies and techniques, this book is accessible even for teachers without previous experience in course design, whilst also acting as a reference for more experienced language educators.

Part I. Theoretical Background: 1. Blended language learning definition and research; Part II. Route, Process, and Structure: 2. The roadmap to blended language learning adoption: routes, rationales, and the decision-making process; 3. The foundation of blended language learning: the blend, the blending process, and the blended path; 4. Course design and redesign in practice: examples from colleges and universities across the world; Part III. The BLL Development Framework: 5. The design phase: planning and organizing blended language courses; 6. The build phase: building activities and tasks for blended language courses; 7. The teach phase: teaching blended language courses; 8. The revise phase: assessing and evaluating blended language courses.

Daria Mizza is Head of Language Instructional Technology at the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University, where she also directs the French and Italian Language Programs.
Fernando Rubio is Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of Utah, where he is also Director of the Second Language Teaching and Research Center and Director of Online Curriculum Enhancement and Innovation.