Moodle: a Way for Blending Vle and Face-to-face Instruction in the Elt Context?

This classroom research explores the probable consequences of a blended Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYLs) course comprised of Moodle applications and face to face instruction in the English Language Teaching (ELT) context. Contrary to previous face to face only procedure, the course was divided into two segments: traditional classroom instruction where lectures and discussions on how to teach English to young learners were held and the Moodle application where students uploaded their micro-teaching sessions and discussed and criticised one another’s work online. This blended course was also thought to be a potential aid to save time in overcrowded classes. The procedure was designed in a manner that time to be devoted to microteaching sessions in the classroom was expected to be saved and left room for classroom discussions. To gather data, a student readiness scale, a questionnaire eliciting student teachers’ views about the experience and, to bring more depth to the study, semistructured interviews were used. The results reveal that a blended young learner course has various positive contributions other than time management for the instructor as well as on behalf of the course attendants. INTRODUCTION In this age we have been living, we inevitably benefit from the advantages of technology in every field of life including education. As institutions struggle hard to provide a constantly increasing number of people with training or education, use of CD ROMs, interactive computer programmes, web based or online learning, distance education, e-learning programmes and the like have gained more and more value. As a consequence of scrutinizing the pros and cons of the variety of these means of education and virtual learning environments, new doors were opened for newer conceivable innovations such as blending face-to-face and online education. Moreover, over the past decade web-based Virtual Learning Environments (VLE, also known as Course Management Systems, CMS) have become a standard part of teaching and learning provision in further and higher education. To begin with, defining a virtual learning environment may contribute well to the discussion of the study. According to the definition of Techterms, a VLE is a virtual classroom that allows teachers and students to communicate with each other. Class information, learning materials, and assignments are typically provided via the Web. Students can log in the class website to view this information and may also download assignments and required reading materials to their computers. Some VLEs even allow assignments and tests to be completed online. Similarly, Wikipedia defines a VLE (or a learning platform) as “an education system based on the web that models conventional real-world education by providing equivalent virtual access to classes, class content, tests, homework, grades, assessments, and other external resources such as academic or museum links. It is also a social space where students and teacher interact through threaded discussions or chat. It typically uses Web 2.0 tools for two-way interaction, and includes a content management system” (pa.1). On the other hand, Dillenbourg, Schneider and Synteta (2002) write about a virtual learning environment as not referring to any educational web site, and not being restricted to systems including some 3D virtual reality technology. According to them, a “virtual learning environment” is not a synonymous to a “virtual campus”. However, it provides university courses, while the name “virtual learning environment” does not restrict the scope to any age or level. In other words, a virtual learning environment is a designed information space for all. It is a social space; educational interactions occur in the environment, turning spaces into places. The virtual space is explicitly represented; the representation of this information/social space can vary from text to 3D immersive worlds. Students are not only active, but also actors; they co-construct the virtual space. These environments are not restricted to distance education; they also enrich classroom activities and integrate heterogeneous technologies and multiple pedagogical approaches. Finally, they point out that most virtual environments overlap with physical environments. Nowadays, such systems as VLE or CMS are now also increasingly to be found in secondary schools and even primary schools. “These tools provide a wide range of features for supporting teaching and learning, from TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – October 2013, volume 12 issue 4 Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 104 simple document sharing to enabling online discussions and assessments and integration with institutional information systems” (Livingstone and Kemp, 2008, p. 59). A growing body of research in the field of virtual learning environments concerns the consequences of using VLE tools in teaching and learning (Ilin, 2006 ; Inozu & Ilin, 2007; Douglas and Hegelheimer, 2007; Polding, 2007; Zeng and Takatzuka, 2009; Tuparova, and Tuparov, 2010; Ozkan, 2011; Johanesen, Erstad, and Habib, 2012). Findings emerged from these studies similarly suggest that contribution of VLEs shows itself in various educational components in academic terms as students’ becoming more proficient in certain language skills as well as in affective terms as utilising collaboration and co-operation with peers which eventually leads to the formation of a group spirit. Moreover, Johanesen et. al. report teachers’ negative attitude toward the use of VLE at their schools in primary and university level in the Norwegian context. However, over time it was observed that teachers who were opposing to the use of VLE in their contexts developed a number of teaching practices at both levels. In addition, changes were detected in relation to the perceived pressure coming from the governance of school which then was followed by teachers’ coming to a mutual understanding and approval of VLE. Next, it is worth mentioning that teachers changed their views on the empowerment as regards their teaching practices as well as relationships with parents and co-teachers. Teachers further began to find VLE as a supporting professional, flexible and creative practice. Finally, they confessed that VLE triggered students’ interest toward the course and in both type of schools, teachers stated they held the belief that VLE allowed for a closer followup. A highly favoured course management system (CMS) for online learning Moodle, as defined in Wikipedia is “one of the most user friendly and flexible of the globally-free open source courseware products available, and is specifically designed to help educators who want to create high quality on-line courses. It is said to have excellent documentation, strong support for security and administration, and is evolving towards information. According to Wikipedia, Moodle enables teachers to provide graded assignments, lessons, and choice, to share documents, quizzes, workshops, and chat, and to offer a forum for learners, in a manner that is both easy and offers high quality teaching” (pa.3). Furthermore, as a courseware package and learning system, Moodle has great potential for supporting conventional classroom instruction, for example, to do additional work outside of class, to become the delivery system for blended (or hybrid) course formats, or even to be used as a standalone e-learning platform. Another important issue not to be disregarded about Moodle is that it is a web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS), that is, a CMS and VLE designed around pedagogical principles, namely a social constructivist philosophy using the collaborative possibilities of the Internet. It allows teachers to provide and share documents, graded assignments, quizzes, and the like with students in an easy-to-learn way, and to create quality on-line courses (Al-Ajlan and Zedan, 2003). Provoked by the underlying social constructivist philosophy, practicality and feasibility of Moodle that seems highly compatible with the ELT context; this study investigates the consequences of a blended Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL’s) course. The course was designed comprising of Moodle application and face to face instruction. The questions the answers of which were sought after in this study are as the following: Research questions 1. How ready are the student-teachers of ELT department for a blended face-to-face instruction and Moodle application in the Teaching English to Young Learners course? 2. How do prospective teachers of English view such a change? 3. In what ways, if any, did the blended application have an influence on the course in student teachers’ point of view? 4. Can Moodle be used as an aid to save time in crowded classes in the ELT department? 5. If student-teachers had the chance, would they prefer the face-to-face instruction or the blended course? THE STUDY This classroom study initially sets out to explore the probable consequences of a blended TEYLs course comprised of Moodle applications and face to face instruction in the ELT context. It also tests the blended course as an alternative way to economise the time devoted to micro-teaching sessions shifting the time consuming follow-up teacher and peer criticism stage on to Moodle. Thus, time would be saved for more classroom discussions on ways to teach English to young learners in overcrowded classes. Totally 100 3 year student-teachers taking the second semester of TEYLs course in the ELT Department of a Turkish University participated in this study. As the nature of this course requires, student-teachers are involved in lecture type sessions, discussions, and micro-teaching and followup critique procedures. The idea for blending the course with Moodle application partially emerged from the need for more time for the last procedure mentioned in addition to the inspiration that such a change might end up with a two-fold benefit on behalf of the course TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – October 2013, volume 12 issue 4 Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 105 attendants as becoming more proficient in both language teaching methodology and technology. With this estimation, student teachers were informed about the change in the course design and that from then on, they were going to upload their micro-teaching sessions on Moodle. A brief training on how to use Moodle sufficed as all student teachers were highly familiar with various similar forum and social media platforms on the net. The inclusion of Moodle to the course design entitled each student teacher the chance both to present their own work with comfort and ease and devote as much time as they needed to go through their peers’ work. Moodle also provided the participants with the opportunity to visit the platform in their own time and as many times as they felt was adequate. With this new procedure, the student teachers criticised one another’s work on Moodle instead of in the classroom setting, which was expected to save time. On the other hand, student-teachers were busy with the other dimensions of the course and continued their faceto-face instruction and formed their groups for their final drama presentation. To elaborate, the assessment for this course had three legs: the micro teaching sessions uploaded on Moodle, criticism toward peers’ work and finally a drama activity bearing two specifications; first, designing an appropriate drama activity with a purpose for teaching or recycling a language unit and second, giving a hidden moral or ethical message to their imaginary prospective young learners. To start with, in order to identify the student-teachers’ status of readiness for such a blended course, at the very beginning of the term, they were given a readiness scale. Following this, 14 week blended TEYLs course started. At the end of the semester, a questionnaire designed to elicit student teachers’ views about the experience was administered. In addition, in order both to bring more depth to the study and warrant triangulation, semistructured interviews were held with randomly selected 20 participants. The analysis of the mixed type data collected comprised of two planes; SPSS analysis of the quantitative data gained through readiness scale and the questionnaire and the interview data that were subjected to content analysis. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The demographic information section of the readiness scale reveals that the participants, at the time of the study, were between 19-25 years of age, and more than half of the studentteacher population had been actively using computers for about “five to ten years” (51,6%), “almost every day” (54,7%), “for study reasons” (67,2%) as well as “to have fun” (26,6%). The type of activities they mainly involved in comprised of “searching information” (%89, 1), “sending and receiving mails” (%62, 5), “downloading” (%46.9) and finally, “chatting” (%38). According to the scale results, we see that % 69, 8 of the participants were “comfortable communicating with others over the internet” and “with online written communication” (%73, 5). These clearly indicate that all student teachers were familiar with computer and internet use. Regarding cognitive, meta-cognitive, social/ affective strategies (Dörnyei, 2005) and autonomy, most probably as a natural consequence of their major, student-teachers appear to be very well aware of their own preferences and responsibilities for learning. To go in detail, they find themselves “self-directed in terms of studying and learning” (% 65.6), “self-disciplined and capable of setting aside further study and homework time” (% 67.2), and “managing study time effectively and easily to complete assignments on time” (% 65.7). Furthermore, they find it “easy to set goals and believe that they have a high degree of initiative” (%68, 2). According to the results gained in the SPSS analysis, student-teachers appear to be autonomous learners; they hold the belief that “knowledge is largely constructed by the learners and regard teachers as facilitators of learning than dispensers of information” (% 71, 8). In addition, they believe that they are “the only responsible people for their own learning” (% 67.2); some say that they can “figure out novel ways to solve problems” (%43, 8). However, contrary to the confidence they displayed in almost all their answers, they apparently “need constant feedback about their performance to stay on task” (%71, 9). When it comes to student-teachers’ learning preferences, it appears that most can “work in groups in collaboration with their peers” (% 69.9); and also “enjoy working alone with minimal support or interaction” (%53, 14). The analysis also reveals a positive attitude in the student teachers toward a blended course and we find out that they “view blended learning as of at least equal quality to traditional classroom learning” (% 76.6). Fifty-seven per cent appear to be “willing to communicate actively with their classmates over Moodle” and % 64.5 is “enthusiastic to set aside an amount of time each week to effectively engage in activities on Moodle”. Taking into account all these findings reached at the end of the analysis, we may suggest that most of the student teachers appear to be ready for the Moodle application in their TEYLs course. At the end of the 14 week semester, student teachers were given a 25 item Likert type questionnaire to elicit answers on their experience of the blended young Learners course from various standpoints. The results TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – October 2013, volume 12 issue 4 Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 106 demonstrate that according to the % 96, 5 of the participants the course was “interest generating”, they were “motivated to access the site of the course” (% 91.4), it was easy for %70, 7 to “feel motivated to start this course”, and for the majority, “such an organisation doubled their benefit from the course” (%81, 3). For % 98, 3, “the course was satisfactory and valuable in academic terms” and in a course like this, “learning was easy and fun” (%89, 8). Probably, derived from this belief, they viewed blended delivery as a “useful tool for language teacher education” (% 94.9). These resemble Sanchez and Hueros’ (2010) findings by which they discussed that Moodle usage was directly influenced by perceived ease of use and attitude. As they put it, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on attitude were highly important motivational factors. However, we should not ignore the probability that the design of the course and the activities the student-teachers involved in may well have a trace on the positive reactions given by the participants. As the questionnaire results reveal, cooperation on the Moodle was another component that triggered the student teachers interest toward the course. “The presence of their peers on the net positively contributed to their learning” (%81, 4) and “instant feedback they received from both their teacher and peers on Moodle provided them with more awareness on their academic improvement as well as evaluation of their work” (%91, 4). Furthermore, “the virtual learning environment established by Moodle was deemed as supportive in terms of reaching the content of the course as many times as the student teachers needed in their own time”, which was not possible in a traditional face-to-face course (%93, 2). Parallel to what we found in the readiness scale, the student-teachers “were comfortable working on Moodle” (%94, 9), “did not experience any difficulties once they learnt how to do proceed through Moodle” (%76, 3) and when they faced difficulties “the instructor was always there to help” (%98, 3). According to Keramati, Mofrad and Kamrani (2011) readiness factors have the most important effect in elearning outcomes besides teacher’s motivation and training. In line with this finding, if tutors are motivated and engaged, then the process will ultimately produce a better result for all concerned (Polding, 2007). If a student is not self motivated, or if getting online is considered a challenge or inconvenience, the use of Moodle will be difficult (Beatty and Ulasewicz, n.d.). Furthermore, they depict that feedback is the most important factor of any kind of communication, especially in learning. While designing and implementing learning activities, teachers need to be very aware of providing good feedback. In distance learning (also e-learning) the feedback has more importance because of the lack of face to face interaction. On the other hand, in spite of the readiness for a blended course the student-teachers displayed in the analysis of the scale, we see the reality that their instructor was around whenever they encountered difficulties strengthened the participants and gave them a sense of security. Teacher’s existence for support motivated the studentteachers and led to participants’ more positive reactions. This feeling might have emerged from the fact that the student-teachers were experiencing a blended course for the first time and were sometimes hesitant about what is right and what is wrong to do. In such instances, with teacher’s support they felt themselves more at ease. Similarly, Brenton (2009) notes the importance of the teacher’s presence in online courses as follows “(t)he role of the teacher in e-learning is just as important to student learning as it is in the seminar room or lecture hall” (p. 97) Although not within the scope of this study, it seems to be worth mentioning as the results signal related implications; teacher support can be considered as an important component leading to course satisfaction. A significant body of literature has supported the assertion that communication in the classroom is central to the learning process (Baker, 2004; Moore&Kearsley, 2005; Saba, 2007in Lee, Srinivasan, Trail, Lewis and Lopez 2011, p.162). To go in detail, Lee et. al, (2011), studied the relationship between course satisfaction and teacher support in an undergraduate online course in the USA. They explored the matter from three aspects of support; instructional, peer, and technical support. The results show that perceived support was significantly related with to the students’ overall satisfaction of the course. Their findings suggest that teachers should communicate what types of support are available to students and provide an easy way of accessing and taking advantage of the support. Similarly, Paechter and Maier (2010) state that students prefer face-to-face learning when discourse with teacher serves to build up knowledge but appreciate online learning for its potential in providing a clear and coherent structure of the learning material, in supporting self-regulated learning, and in distributing information. Furthermore, as the findings of this present study imply, students prefer face-to-face learning for communicative purposes in which a shared understanding has to be derived or which interpersonal relations are to be established. When conceptual knowledge in the subject matter or skills in the application of one’s knowledge are to be acquired, students prefer face-to face learning. However, when skills in self-regulated learning are to be required, students advocate online learning. Therefore, e-learning courses should be designed, in a way to implement face-to-face components in which the instructor obtains the role of a facilitator of learning process and students receive explicit feedback for their accomplishments. The instructor should provide TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – October 2013, volume 12 issue 4 Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 107 opportunities to develop knowledge together and students should obtain the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and develop a model on a subject matter. In spite of the positive reactions shown toward Moodle and the blended course, and although all the lecture notes in the form of PowerPoint presentations together with songs, rhymes, chants, tongue twisters, games, visuals and the like were already uploaded on the site, an undeniable percent of the student-teachers said that they had a tendency to forget information obtained from the net as opposed to published materials (% 47, 5). This finding can be synchronised to the findings reached by Woody, Daniel, and Baker, 2010; Poulton, Conradi, Kavia, Round and Hilton; 2009. In fact, Noorhidawati, and Gibb (2008) categorise different types of e-book use in an academic setting: (a) fact finding; (b) finding relevant content; and (c) extended reading. The most popular reason for using e-books was for “finding relevant content” which indicated that e-books were not read in their entirety but instead were consulted or used for reference purpose. Most probably, the echoing findings reached in this study were the result of a belief derived from a similar epistemological ground. This may also be a reflection of their habit they developed through their face-to-face educational background. In terms of the learning outcomes, as % 62, 7 stated, student-teachers “put more time into this class than they would have invested in a regular TEYLs class” and eventually, % 45, 8 bear the belief that they “learnt more than they would have in a traditional face-to-face class”. “The activities they involved in the blended course greatly contributed to %89, 7’s ability to constructively criticise and discuss, as well as confidence in their ability to use technology” (%91, 5), which were “relevant to their real life needs as prospective language teachers” (%81, 4). The student teachers consider blended courses as “giving a deeper understanding of the course content as opposed to traditional ones” (%67, 8) and maybe based on similar beliefs, they wish they “had other blended courses in the department” (%77, 6). If given a chance, %64, 4 “would take the blended course rather than the traditional TEYLs course”. This finding echoes in Blake, Wilson, Cetto and Pardo (2008) who examined the case of first year Spanish course offered at the University of California, in both hybrid and distant learning format. As they argue, the students are not being disadvantaged by taking Spanish in a nontraditional format. According to their view, without doubt, students will continue to self-select for the type of language instruction they prefer whenever given the chance, as also found in this study. Accordingly, the profession should concern itself with providing legitimate options increasing all avenues of access to language instruction. (p. 124). When it comes to results reached through interviews, we reveal that out of 20 interviewees, only one stated that s/he did not benefit from Moodle application and the blended course. The remaining participants explained the ways they benefitted from the blended course in various ways as displayed in the table below. Table 1. Areas students benefitted from blended course n Benefits gained from F 1 Criticism toward friends’ work on Moodle 16 2 Technology use 16 3 More opportunities for discussion 12 4 Preparation of micro teaching sessions on the net 10 5 Awareness of better language use 8 6 Awareness of innovative ways for teaching 6