Abstract:

In universities world around, smart-phones have been a major competitor with teachers for the precious attention of undergraduates in classrooms, especially in classrooms with 300 and above seats. The author, leading her team from higher education institutions of China, has developed a blended learning course to convert this “smart” competitor into an intelligent enhancer of effective and efficient learning achievements.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate a blended learning course design where smart-phones are employed as a necessity in study activities. The case course of hybrid teaching design is an English delivered general selective course titled An Overview on China and Chinese Culture for undergraduates in USTL (University of Science and Technology Liaoning). The study app using in this case is SuperStar, which bonds online MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) with offline learning activities via smart phones.

The relevant researches includes the advantages and the limitations of EFL MOOCs, the development and popularisation of study app for smart phones, and the Integration of online and offline EFL course resources.

There are two long-time existed contradictory situations in TEFL-related technique environment. Language studies require small class size of 15-20 students, while MOOCs are for public utilities of the utmost student population. EFL classroom involves repetitive trails led by the course teacher, while MOOCs demands autonomic learning management of an individual. The key solution to the above two problems is to design an integrated teaching method combining online and offline course resources. The technical combination of MOOC platform and study app has turned smart phone a mobile “classroom”, enabling teachers of EFL to realise student-centred blended learning design regardless of the restrictions from class population. In short, this research result is valuable to enlighten the promotion of the effectiveness and efficiency of EFL courses.

The research methods adopted in this research include Bibliometric Mapping Analysis for literature review, questionnaire via Superstar for study motivation survey, Learner Portrait for performance assessment.

In this paper, accompanying an introduction for the teaching objectives of this course, the study motivations of the engineering-majored undergraduates are analysed by the related data collected via SuperStar. Survey data shows that 71.7% of the respondents (sample size 314) have realised the insufficiency of conventional courses of college English for future career, 59.9% urging for course reforms. Accordingly, a blended learning English course for undergraduates is designed, employing stories and cases of China and her culture as the carriers of course contents. Time allocation of online and offline study activities is formulated, followed by corresponding innovative methods of study achievement evaluation.

The blended learning design is conducted by five linked segments:
- Teaching (online MOOC / offline classroom)
- Learning (participated studying)
- Practising (MOOC exercises / cross-cultural communication tasks)
- Assessing (pre-study tests / post-study tests)
- Evaluating (teacher’s evaluation / peer’s evaluation).

The effectiveness and efficiency of the blended learning design are testified by the academic achievements and study feedback of students. Finally, the design is evaluated and suggestions to further research and practice are proposed.

Keywords:

Smart study, higher education, online foreign language teaching (FLT), student-centred blended learning design, EFL MOOC.