INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY IN BLENDED LEARNING: GENERAL ENGLISH COURSE DESIGN AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

Data exchange in the 21st century becomes a crucial engine for all the processes, ideas,
trends and breakthroughs in any professional sphere. This fact has two main implications: education
as an institution needs revisiting; higher education must change in the most effective way
to ensure professional success of the graduates. English as a professional and academic lingua
franca should constitute an academic environment even in non-English speaking countries.
The paper deals with the issues of blended learning and development of its online component.
The objective of the research is to prove the positive influence of blended learning technology
on educational outcomes in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes for university students
of various CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference) levels in the digital era.
The methods used include the literature analysis and the experiment with twenty groups of students
having traditional and blended learning classes. The results of the experiment were assessed
via 1) IELTS-type test, 2) Moodle statistics, 3) students’ in-class participation, 4) instructors’
feedback, and 5) students’ feedback. The results show that blended learning has improved
students’ reading skills, enlarged their vocabulary, enhanced their grammar ability compared
with the traditional classes without online management system support, but the most critical
issue is that blended learning has optimized classroom practice, reduced teacher’s preparation
time, and stimulated students’ efforts.