Abstract:

This paper describes the experience of introducing a new Spanish and compulsory blended course at a university in the English-speaking Caribbean. The introduction of this course resulted from the implementation of a foreign language university wide policy that ambitiously seeks to produce graduates capable of ‘conversing’ in a language other than English, the university’s language of instruction.

The main focus of the paper is to examine the opportunities and challenges of the online component of the blended course from the perspective of the first two cohorts of students who took the course in the academic year 2022-2023, and the primary lecturer. Data for this study comes from different sources. One source of data are the surveys administered at different times during the course of the two academic semesters; such surveys sought to gather students’ impressions on the demands of the online segment of the course and an attempt to capture their descriptions of how they approached the online work. Another source of data are the activity reports available on the e-learning platform that provide accurate information of when students completed the online activities and the degree of success. The last source of data is the teacher’s narrative captured in his reflective journals. Theoretically, this paper is underpinned by the learning beyond the classroom [1] literature, which looks carefully at the role of technology and online learning in foreign language education contexts.

Preliminary findings suggest mixed responses in terms of students’ approaches to studying Spanish online. While, based on the survey responses, their impressions of the course are seemingly positive, their approach to working independently online seems surface and strategic rather than deep. In other words, their completion of the online word seems to be guided by the compulsory nature of the assignments instead of a true desire to learn and/or to practice the language by means of the online activities.

References:
[1] H. Reinders, H., "Chapter 4 - A framework for learning beyond the classroom," in Autonomy in language education: Theory, research and practice (M. Jiménez Raya & F. Vieira Eds.), pp. 63-73, New York: Routledge, 2020.

Keywords:

Spanish as a foreign language, learning beyond the classroom, online independent language learning, blended language learning.