A 2nd Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016

Taken from http://www.relacionesculturales.edu.mx/abla-2016/

A 2 nd Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016: “Maximizing Learning Outcomes through Blended Learning: What Research Shows”

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed. School of English Faculty of Social Sciences Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Suday, August 28, 2016 Post 286

“English language acquisition around the world is increasingly being seen as a skill for personal as well as national development. English language skills are becoming increasingly more closely aligned with employability” [ CITATION Gli16 \l 5130 ]. English has proven itself a means of instrumental motivation to find better jobs and opportunities in life in many Latin American countries. Seeing what it is happening in my home country, Costa Rica, I can see what Glick labels as the alignment with employability when referring to English language skills. But the problem is not the individual or national desire for people to be employed with a higher salary or with the provision of more perks for employees; the issue comes as to how make all these English learners become fluent in the target language.

Dr. Danny Glick, Edusoft Limited – ETS and University of California, Irvine’s Digital Learning Lab, California, USA

At ABLA 2016, Dr. Glick, -based on his research case study carried out in a university in Northwestern Mexico-, claims that Edusoft’s English Discoveries can provide a way to maximize student learning in a language course. The experience that Dr. Glick describes is not that new to me since, as an English Discoveries Online (EDO) user and administrator in the cultural center I work for, I was able to witness some of his claims: the outperformance of learners using the virtual platform, the gap in favor of the blended model of language learning, and the cost effectiveness of blended courses when compared to entirely F2F-taught courses. In spite of Dr. Glick’s quantitative analysis of the data gathered in Mexico and shown during his presentation at ABLA, the corpus of statistical data I processed at the binational center where I work was approached from a more qualitative frame of reference.

“Students taking blended English language courses using English Discoveries outperform students taking the same course in a face-to-face format” [ CITATION Gli16 \l 1033 ]. At the binational center where I hold a curricular position, we started using EDO back in 2014. Part of the rationale we used to start using this online platform was the need to provide learners with a virtual space to practice course content outside the classroom. When we started analyzing the data coming from our electronic gradebooks, especially in final examinations, we started to see a difference in the way learners were performing prior the use of EDO and when they

had had six months of EDO usage. There was a gradual improvement we could note in the way our students were performing. Our experience did not count with students who were solely taking our courses F2F since the transition to a blended format took place in about 4 months, but when compared to what had been happening before EDO started being used, learners were performing exceptionally.

And as Dr. Glick stated in his ABLA presentation, the difference we could also see “did not happen due to chance” (2016); something was being gestating cognitively speaking in the minds of our students.

“The gap in favor of the blended model increases as the English proficiency level of the students increases” [ CITATION Gli16 \l 1033 ]. EDO helped us improve our students’ performance in our binational center’s English program, but we did not get to see the gap spotted by Dr. Glick as the level of proficiency increased. Based on his quantitative analysis of data presented at ABLA 2016, the higher the level of mastery of the students the wider the gap between EDO users and non-users was.

That is, higher proficiency levels were favoring the learners who were working with the blended format. What I basically observed in the samples of data gotten from the database of gradebooks was that final written exams were becoming better in terms of their grades when compared to what we used to do prior the implementation of EDO at our binational center. There was indeed a difference in test scores, but we did not quantify what was observed in the Mexican case study.

Though I do not have evidence of this per se, what was noticeable in our database was an increase of final test performance and their corresponding grades.

“Blended courses were found to be more cost effective when compared with traditional fact-to-fact teaching” [ CITATION Gli16 \l 1033 ]. Having learners transition from a F2F teaching format to a blended one was a great improvement in our teaching standards at our binational center; we found that having learners work

on an online platform benefitted them especially because we decided to grade their work on it. Based on our national idiosyncrasy, we agreed on grading student platform work because otherwise they wouldn’t work on it autonomously. From this point of view, the course turned “cost effective” because the investment on the platform brought interesting changes in learner performance when we got to the program’s exit exams, the TOEIC test. Since differences in test scores do not “happen due to chance,” a blended format in our program produced a positive change in our students who –after more hours of language exposure- were able to get better grades in their exit exam tests. From a mere qualitative stand we can conclude that the effect of a blended cycle in which EDO played a great part positively affected learner performance on this exit test.

Like in any case study, we need to keep in the lookout that it pertains to a very specific group of individuals with very specific teaching and learning conditions.

Dr. Glick’s “case study” learners were located in a Mexican university where they were using English Discoveries as part of their courses. However, as it was explained by him, there were other groups who did not participate and who were used as a basis for comparison. In my particular situation, we were migrating our whole F2F program to a blended format by means of EDO, and we did not have controlled groups or anything like that. What we can attest and corroborate with the school’s course databases is that there was an improvement in language proficiency.

I must agree 100% with Dr. Glick that phenomena like these do not happen just by chance; something triggers these changes in student behavior. I am more than certain that EDO (English Discoveries Online by Edusoft) must have played a role in the improvement of student language proficiency, but there are other factors that also need to be considered in our particular case: the amount of blended learning training hours invested on instructors, a marked change in the recruitment

policies our institution had to look for more suitable teaching candidates with some electracy traits in their teaching profile, the continuous guidance given to students in the use of the platform by our teaching staff, the weekly class performance reports issued by Edusoft that allowed us to pinpoint courses where supervisors needed to help the instructor with the blended learning cycle implementation, the inclusion of test items coming from lexical component extracted directly from EDO, and so on. There were and continue being changes in our blended program that make it more robust and competitive in our local teaching market.

Reference Glick, D. (2016, August 16-19). Maximizing Learning Outcomes through Blended Learning: What Research Shows. 21st Century Challenges ABLA 2016 Convention Program . Monterrey, Nuevo Leรณn, Mexico: Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales.