An action research on applying a blended learning program to improve students’ TOEIC listening performance in a TOEIC class

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
******************

LƯỜNG HẠNH NGÂN

AN ACTION RESEARCH ON APPLYING A BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM
TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ TOEIC LISTENING PERFORMANCE
IN A TOEIC CLASS

(Nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm về việc áp dụng một chương trình học kết hợp
công nghệ thông tin vào lớp học truyền thống để cải thiện khả năng nghe
TOEIC của học sinh trong một lớp học TOEIC)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01

HANOI - 2018


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
******************

LƯỜNG HẠNH NGÂN

AN ACTION RESEARCH ON APPLYING A BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM TO

IMPROVE STUDENTS’ TOEIC LISTENING PERFORMANCE
IN A TOEIC CLASS

(Nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm về việc áp dụng một chương trình học kết hợp công
nghệ thông tin vào lớp học truyền thống để cải thiện khả năng nghe TOEIC của
học sinh trong một lớp học TOEIC)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01
Supervisor: Dr. Dương Đức Minh

HANOI - 2018


DECLARATION
I, Lường Hạnh Ngân, hereby certify that this thesis entitled: “An action research on
applying a blended learning program to improve students‟ TOEIC listening
performance in a TOEIC Class”, which is submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post-Graduate
Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National
University, Hanoi, is the result of my own work. I have provided fully documented
references to the work of others. The material in this thesis has not been submitted
for any other formal course of study.
Hanoi, 2018

Lường Hạnh Ngân

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ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

This research paper would not have been completed without the help of many
people to whom I would like to express my deep gratitude.
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
supervisor, Mr. Dương Đức Minh, PhD for his wholehearted support, continuous
motivation and precious guidance which was decisive factors to the completion of
the thesis.
I owe my parents their continuous support. Their patience and love have
helped me go beyond what sometimes looks like an insurmountable task.
I thank all my dear friends for their lifting my spirits at each turning point of
this journey as well as for their great encouragement and valuable help during the
data collection process.
Last but not least, I extend my special thanks to all the research participants.
Without their valuable opinions and ideas in the questionnaires, the study would not
have been accomplished.

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ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the use of blended learning (BL) in an on-ground
traditional face-to-face TOEIC course and seeks to determine the extent to which
the blended TOEIC listening course significantly affects the improvement in
students‟ TOEIC listening performance, how students experience the teacher‟s
practice and behavior and measure the students‟ perceptions of the blended learning
environment with respect to its effectiveness. The purpose is to explore how to
prepare English teachers to create a productive BL environment for their students.

To carry out this study both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. In this
case, the use of research may be directed by emphasizing on either quantitative or
qualitative approaches in the mixed method research (Creswell, 2009). Qualitative
and quantitative data were collected through the questionnaires at the end of the
course. Quantitative data would also be collected and analyzed to evaluate the effect
of the blended TOEIC listening course by continuous evaluation and the pretest and
posttest at the beginning and the end of the course respectively.
The results from the data revealed that the Blended TOEIC listening course
significantly affected the improvement in students‟ TOEIC listening performance.
In addition, most of the students involved in the study are generally happy about the
program and they recognize the benefits of the curriculum in enhancing interaction
between them and their classmates as well as their teacher.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS........................................................................................ ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................. vi
LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES ................................................................... vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................1
1. Rationale .............................................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study ................................................................................................2
3. Research questions ..............................................................................................2
4. Scope of the study ...............................................................................................2
5. Significance of the study ....................................................................................3
6. Thesis outline ......................................................................................................3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT.....................................................................................5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................5
1.1. Overview of listening comprehension .............................................................5
1.1.1. Definition of listening comprehension .....................................................5
1.1.2. Significance of listening comprehension .................................................7
1.1.3. The listening comprehension process ......................................................9
1.1.4. Possible problems in listening comprehension ......................................10
1.2. Overview of blended learning .......................................................................12
1.2.1. Definition of blended learning ...............................................................12
1.2.2 Features and possibilities of blended learning ........................................14
1.2.3. Challenges to implementation of blended learning ................................15
1.2.4. Blended learning and E-learning ............................................................18
1.2.5. Blended learning frameworks ................................................................18
1.2.6. Learning outcomes in blended learning .................................................21
1.3. Overview of the TOEIC listening test ...........................................................23
1.3.1. The TOEIC test ......................................................................................23
1.3.2. TOEIC listening comprehension section ................................................23
1.4. ICT tools and listening ...................................................................................24
1.5. The blended TOEIC listening course ............................................................25
1.6. Summary ........................................................................................................30
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................31
2.1. Research design .............................................................................................31
2.2.Context of the study ........................................................................................32
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2.3. Participants.....................................................................................................32
2.4. Data collection instruments ...........................................................................36
2.5. Data collection procedures ............................................................................37
2.6. Data analysis methods ...................................................................................38
2.7. Summary ........................................................................................................39

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS, DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .....40
3.1. Results and discussions ..................................................................................40
3.1.1. The level of the blended TOEIC listening course in the improvement of
students‟ listening performance........................................................................40
3.1.2. Learners‟ attitudes towards the blended learning environment during
their TOEIC listening course ............................................................................42
3.2. Summary ........................................................................................................49
PART C: CONCLUSION.......................................................................................50
1. Recapitulation ...................................................................................................50
2. Major findings...................................................................................................50
3. Limitations ........................................................................................................51
4. Recommendations and suggestions for further studies ....................................53
5. Contribution of the study ..................................................................................54
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................55
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... I
APPENDIX 1: TOEIC LISTENING COMPREHENSION TEST 1 ................... I
(PRETEST) ................................................................................................................ I
APPENDIX 2: TOEIC LISTENING COMPREHENSION TEST 2 ...............XII
(POSTTEST) .........................................................................................................XII
APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE ABOUT BLENDED TOEIC LISTENING
COURSE ............................................................................................................. XXII
APPENDIX 4: REPLIES FOR OPEN QUESTIONS FROM LEARNERS XXV
APPENDIX 5: TOEIC LISTENING SYLLABUS (12 Sessions) ................. XXVI

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BL

: Blended Learning

ESL

: English as Second Language

EFL

: English as Foreign Language

ICT

Information and Communications Technology

:
TOEIC

Test of English for International Communication

:
L2

Second Language

:
N

: Number

MOODLE

: Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment

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LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2.1

The pretest results

Table 2.2

The course procedures

Table 3.1

Group‟s performance in the pre-test and post-test

Table 3.2

Results of the Paired-Sample T-tests

Figure 1.1

Khan‟s Octagonal Framework (adapted by Singh, 2003)

Figure 1.2

The homepage of Blended TOEIC listening course

Figure 1.3

Further practice web page

Figure 1.4

Assigned homework

Figure 1.5

Summited homework

Figure 1.6

Further exercises/practice

Figure 1.7

The learners check the results of excersies

Figure 3.1

Periodical test results

Figure 3.2

Students‟ satisfaction of BL TOEIC listening course

Figure 3.3

Students‟ attitude of online assignments

Figure 3.4

Students‟ opinion about their online listening assignments

Figure 3.5

Students‟ perception of online assignments

Figure 3.6

Technical difficulties

Figure 3.7

The impact of online activities on listening skills

Figure 3.8

The impact of online assignments on specific listening skills

Figure 3.9

Reasons for not completing the online assignments

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
With the emergence of online technology, the modern classroom is changing,
nobody can deny the effectiveness of applying information communication and
technology and the internet in foreign language teaching; therefore, living in the 21st
century with a lot of new technologies coming into beings, teachers of English need
to make use of these new technologies to apply in their English language teaching.
The computer with the internet is the one among the achievements of the new
technologies and computers have had a great marvellous impact in English language
teaching, so merging these two fields - computers and English language is
inevitable in a world where many things are being automated and implemented into
computer programs.
Listening ability is one of the important skills in foreign language learning and
no one can deny its important role. However, listening skills in language learning
have not received sufficient attention and listening remains one of the least
understood processes in language learning. Hardly has anyone doubted nowadays
that listening skills must be trained and practices regularly and continuously. The
contemporary application of high technology in language teaching and learning is
listening online which can also be consolidated into traditional classroom listening
to audio from cassettes or CDs. Researchers and language practitioners have also
perpetuated that listening skills could be chosen by the learners for a long period of
time and the present advantages of high technology allow the use of a combination
of learning techniques in which the method blended learning of listening skills in
English classrooms is employed and applied effectively. From the own experience
as an English teacher in teaching English in general and listening skill in specific,
the researcher has found that students encounter many difficulties when studying
listening and since having a big gap in listening comprehension, when converging

on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) syllabus they

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tend to be disheartened. Most students were not able to get the required passing
mark for the listening part and the students only got an average score of 150 over
495. Therefore, the researcher focused on listening comprehension rather than
other skills and this thesis attempts to examine the practice of blended learning
approach in the sense of its classic definition and present some evidence of its
positive contribution to the students‟ TOEIC listening performance.
2. Aims of the study
This study aims to provide English teachers and students with productive
blended learning environment in an intensive TOEIC listening course. More
specifically, this study seeks to discover to what extent the blended TOEIC listening
course affects the improvement in students‟ TOEIC listening performance as well as
to find out the attitudes of students about the blended learning environment during
their TOEIC listening course.
3. Research questions
In order to fulfill the above mentioned aims, the study tried to answer two
following questions:
1. To what extent does the blended TOEIC listening course affect the
improvement in students’ TOEIC listening performance?
2. What are the students’ attitudes towards the blended learning environment
during their TOEIC listening course?
4. Scope of the study
The study is idiosyncratic to a TOEIC listening class (TOEIC 450) in Centre
for Human Resouce Development for Foreign Language Studies in Thai Nguyen,
Viet Nam and restricted to the exposure of a limited number (N:16) of students as
participants. The course is titled “TOEIC Listening Skills” and it aims at improving

the listening comprehension of the learners; therefore, it gives them the opportunity
to practice listening to various types of listening materials. Through this training
course, students are introduced to the basic practices and strategies in listening
comprehension. In addition, all the participants certified that they have a sufficient

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amount of background on the information technologies and most of the participants
were students at colleges or universities in Thai Nguyen.
5. Significance of the study
Findings from this study will contribute to the field of teacher training,
computer assisted language learning, and the area of blended learning research.
First, this study provides a methodologically well-found approach to preparing ESL
teachers for teaching listening in a blended language learning environment via
blending a traditional face-to-face class and online learning environment to enhance
the quality of TOEIC listening teaching and learning process in Vietnam.
Another possible contribution of this study focuses on evaluating the
productiveness and learner attitudes of a blended learning environment towards the
effectiveness of the implementation of blended learning procedures into the TOEIC
listening courses in order to determine the changes for improvements in terms of
teaching and learning methods.
Last but not least, the study contributes to dealing with the investigation of
how teacher practice and behavior may influence student‟s satisfaction of a blended
language learning environment.
6. Thesis outline
The thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the development and
the conclusion.
Part A is the introduction which presents the rationale for the study, the aims
and objectives, the research questions, the scope, the methods, the significance, and

the design of the study
Part B - The development consists of three chapters.
Chapter 1 is the literature review which provides an overview of the
theoretical background and the previous researches related to the study.
Chapter 2 presents the methodology of the study restating the research
questions and describes the setting where the study is conducted, the participants,
and the instruments used to collect data, and the procedures of data collection.

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In Chapter 3, data analysis and the findings are shown which aims at
describing the analysis of data in detail and giving the summary of the findings as
well as a thorough discussion of the findings of the study. Some explanations and
interpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter.
Part C, the conclusion of the study, provides the summary of the main issues
and concluding remarks of the study. The limitations as well as some suggestions
for further research are also discussed in this part.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

The aim of this chapter is to provide the theoretical background for the study.
It covers theories related to blended learning and listening comprehension skill.
Reviewing the literature is an essential part of the research process that generates
ideas and helps to form critical questions in the process of research design (O’
Leary, 2004, p. 83).

The chapter starts with a literature review on blended

learning. This is followed by an overview of listening comprehension and TOEIC
Listening comprehension Section. The end of the chapter is a discussion of Moodle
and using Moodle in education.
1.1. Overview of listening comprehension
1.1.1. Definition of listening comprehension
Understanding the importance of listening and the different situations where
listening skills are needed, there are numerous definitions of listening by many
scholars. Each one defines in a different way as seen from one‟s own point of view.
Chastain (1971) defines listening comprehension as the ability to understand
native speech at normal speed in unstructured situation whereas Morley (1991,
p.82), listening is the most communicative activity in daily life: “we can expect to
listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times
more than we write.”
From

Rubin and

Meldelsohn‟s (1995) standpoint, listening is an active

process in which a listener selects and interprets information which comes from
auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers
are trying to express. Buck (2001) provides a broader definition of listening
comprehension and noted that listening is a complex and active interpretation
process in which listeners matches what they hear with what they already know. He
asserts that “listening involves linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge” (p.10),
listeners have to be able to apply their abilities and learning strategies involved in

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both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge to interpret and
comprehend messages from the speaker.
In the words of Farrell and Mallard (2006), many language learners, especially
at low proficiency levels, find that listening is the most difficult English skill.
Listening concerns both correctly interpreting incoming speech and responding
appropriately to the speaker, especially in face-to-face conversations where listeners
must be able to contribute verbally.
While scholars‟ definitions of these two terms are often worded differently,
they typically describe the same basic concept, listening comprehension are
considered as an activity in which listeners employ a variety of mental process in an
effort to recognize and master major foreign language patterns, as well as to initiate
all the schemata to make sense of the incoming information.
In addition, Anderson and Lynch (1988) affirm there are two influential views
related to listening comprehension: the first one is the traditional view and the other
one is the alternative view. In the traditional view, the teaching of listening
comprehension centers on what teacher does, and student is a mere by stander or
recipient of input during the communication process (Elkhafaifi, 2005). In this
view, students are seldom required to use the language by themselves in listening
classes and they just need to receive passively the information provided in the
listening materials. Most listening lessons take the form of simply having the
students listen and then answer comprehension questions. This view is criticized as
inappropriate and inadequate (Anderson and Lynch, 1988; Elkhafaifi, 2005). On the
other hand, alternative view considers the listener as an active model builder.
Listener needs to get involve actively in the interpretation of what they hear, bring
his own background knowledge and linguistic competence to reach full
comprehension of what had been heard. Most scholars now agree with this view.
In a word, listening comprehension involves to an active process of listening

for meaning, using both the linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge. According to
Buck (2001), linguistic knowledge consists of different types such as phonology,

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lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure. Nonlinguistic knowledge includes
the knowledge about the topic, about the content, and general knowledge about the
world and how it works.
1.1.2. Significance of listening comprehension
Listening plays a very important role in student‟s academic success. Krashen
(1980) provides a large amount of listening or comprehension input which is the
raw material necessary for the process to occur was the best way to learn a second
language because of its contribution to the development of the overall language
proficiency. Rost (1994) also pinpoints the importance of listening in the language
classroom as the supplier of supplying the input for students. Without
comprehension input at the right level, learning cannot work well. Students spend
most of their time listening to the teacher‟s lecture. Elkhafaifi (2005) reports data on
how students spend their communicative time among four language skills in
language learning and listening is the most frequently used skill: 45% is devoted to
listening, 30% to speaking, only 16% to reading and a mere 9% to writing.
Therefore, listening is a fundamental and vital skill in the acquisition of languages
(Nunan, 2002).
Furthermore, listeners could develop their communicative competence through
listening skills. “Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what
is being said is comprehended by another person” (Rivers,1966, p. 196). As a result,
listening in EFL learning becomes a vital necessary condition of good speaking
ability. If the learners get a large amount of listening practice before speaking and
reading, they are more

likely to acquire a second language with a greater

efficiency. Through listening exercises, learners draw their attention to new forms
such as vocabulary, grammar and interaction pattern, which provides the right
conditions for language acquisition and development of their language skills. The
lack of listening comprehension skill may lead to difficulties in discussion and
communication. Therefore, listening has been shown to play a key role in language
learning.

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1.1.3. The listening comprehension process
There are two distinct processes involved in listening comprehension: bottomup processing and top-down processing.
Bottom-up processing
Bottom-up processing refers to what the listener is hearing by focusing on
vocabulary, grammar, sounds, etc. The listener starts with the smallest units such as
individual sounds or phonemes of the message to later combine them into words
and then into phrases and sentences. These sentences create concepts, ideas, and
relationships between them (Buck, 2001). Bottom-up processing applies knowledge
in a serial, hierarchical way. She further states that when listening involves both
bottom-up and top-down process, it is considered to be interactive listening.
Vandergrift (2007) explained that listeners exercise top-down processes when they
use context and background knowledge such as topic, genre, culture and other
schema knowledge stored in long-term memory to construct a conceptual structure
for comprehension. Listeners make use of bottom-up processes when they construct
meaning by addition, gradually combining increasingly larger units of meaning

from the phoneme - level up to discourse - level features.
Top-down processing
In top-down processing, listeners use their prior knowledge including the topic
of the listening material, context of the listening material, culture of the listening
material, text type of the listening material to generate assumption. In addition, it is
important for both teachers and students to recognize the existence of these two
types of processing listening input since both of them contribute to the development
of listening skill.
However, both bottom-up processing and top-down one have its weak points.
Bottom-up processing fails to see that understanding a text does not depend only on
one‟s linguistic knowledge. It is also an interactive process between the listener‟s
previous knowledge and the text. Top-down processing cannot evoke listeners‟
schemata if the incoming information they hear is unfamiliar to them. Besides,

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although listeners can trigger a schema, they might not have the suitable schema
expected by the speaker.
Because neither bottom-up process nor top-down process alone is sufficient
for comprehension, “these two processing intersect to develop an interactive
processing.” (Wu, 2008, p.23). In the Vandergrift‟s (2007) words, successful
listeners will use a combination of top-down (meaning-focused) and bottom-up
(detailed-focus) accordingly to the listening objectives. He also notes that the speed
and effectiveness at which listeners carry out these processes depend on the degree
to which the listeners can efficiently process what is heard. Successful listening
depends on the ability to combine these two types of processing; therefore, one of
listening teacher‟s jobs is to help students learn to balance the two kinds of
processing.
Listening is a complex process and critical in developing the second language

competence. Guiding students through the process of listening not only provides
them with the knowledge by which they can successfully complete a listening task
but motivates them and puts them in control of their learning as well. Therefore, by
designing appropriate listening tasks and activities, teachers can help students
develop their listening comprehension skill through these processes.
Understanding how listeners process listening comprehension and considering
the possible problems students often encounter in learning to listen to English will
provide students and teachers with a lot of ideas to listen more effectively.
1.1.4. Possible problems in listening comprehension
Listening is usually a hard skill to master in one‟s own language as well as in
second language acquisition. There exist some problems from the point of views of
the listeners when learning to listen.
Underwood (1989) states seven problems in listening comprehension which
include “lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak”, “not being able to
get things repeated”, “the listener‟s limited vocabulary”, “failure to recognise
signals”, “problems of interpretation”, “inability to concentrate”, and “established

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learning habits ”. (p.16)

Lack of vocabulary is really an obstacle for people

listening to a foreign language since they can sometimes hear the words clearly, but
the problem may occur in understanding the meanings of the words they do not
know. An unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to
stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next
part of the speech. Besides, “established learning habits” mean students are
traditionally taught to understand everything in the English lessons by listening

carefully to teachers who probably speak slowly and clearly. As a result, students
become worried and discouraged if they fail to understand every word while
listening.
Ur (1996) shares some of the main points with Underwood (1989) about
problems in listening comprehension. There are six major problems refered by Ur
(1996) which are difficulties in perceiving sounds, following natural speed and
native accent, catching up with the load of information as well as the needs to
understand everything, to get things repeated, and to have a rest. Trouble with
sounds seems to be the biggest problem as most students have difficulty catching
the actual sounds of the foreign language. The misconception that listening means
having to understand every word is a very common problem and is often
unconsciously fostered by teachers and/or listening materials. The effort to
understand everything results in ineffective comprehension as well as feelings of
fatigue and failure. The speed of the speakers also causes many difficulties to
students because they cannot hear the sounds clearly when dealing with fast and
natural native-sounding speech.
Yagang (1993) provides a little bit different point of view when saying that
“The evidence that shows why listening is difficult comes mainly from four
sources: the message to be listened to, the speaker, the listener, and the physical
setting.” The message is considered in terms of the content (topic, organization …)
and linguistic features (liaisons, elision …). The speaker factor includes
redundancy, speaker‟s voice, accent and speech style. The listener factor involves in

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linguistic knowledge, background knowledge, exposure to different kinds of
listening materials, psychological and physical factors. The physical setting consists
of background noises, visual and aural environmental clues, etc.
The problems students may encounter in listening comprehension are various.

As a result, they need to have some solutions to overcome these difficulties and
develop their listening competence.
1.2. Overview of blended learning
1.2.1. Definition of blended learning
In general blended learning is defined as a combination of online and face -toface education, but the definition somewhat varies according to different scholars.
According to Sharma (2010), there are three definitions of “blended learning” that
are pertinent in the world of education. The prototypical interpretation of the term is
“the integrated combination of traditional learning with web based online
approaches” (Oliver and Trigwell, 2005, p. 17). “Traditional learning” is understood
as classroom face-to-face language classes. Two other definitions refer to either a
combination of technologies or a combination of methodologies (Sharma, 2010, p.
456) and the educational effect of blended learning. Considering the features and
educational effects, blended learning has become an issue of great interest lying in
the apparent fact that there is no single way to meet the needs of various learners
and to achieve an optimal level of learning.
From the learner‟s viewpoints, blended learning is effective in satisfying the
learner‟s satisfaction in that it enhances the learner‟s convenience and accessibility
(Cottrell & Robinson, 2003), meeting the various needs and learning styles
(Dziuban, Hartman & Moskai, 2004), encourages interaction between learners
(Osguthorpe & Graham, 2003), and it creates an environment where both real-time
and delayed interaction are available. Blended learning also improves the learning
achievement by fostering active interaction between learners, learners and teachers,
and learners and lessons. Since this blended course is a combination of face-to-face

12


learning with web-based online one, this thesis generally follows the definition of
blended learning by Oliver and Trigwell (2005).

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1.2.2 Features and possibilities of blended learning
There are several reasons why a blended learning (BL) approach can be
beneficial. Osguthorpe and Graham (2003) classified the six reasons for using
blended learning. They are pedagogical richness, access to knowledge, social
interaction, personal agency, cost-effectiveness and ease of revision. Of these six
reasons Graham, Allen and Ure (2003) explored that blended learnning was
primarily carried out for the reasons of improved pedagogy, increased access and
flexibility, and increased cost-effectiveness. Knowing these possible reasons why
blended learning is used in many training courses brings up the topic of who is
promoting this use, how it is being integrated into training courses, and whether it
is, in fact successful. It is generally well established that there is a savings potential
in moving some classroom contact hours online (Dziuban & Moskal, 2001; Oh &
Park, 2009). This reduces the need for physical meeting space and classrooms with
their associated costs. While cost-effectiveness is undoubtedly a significant
motivation to support the use of blended learning, it is not the focus of this
dissertation study and will not be addressed. Notwithstanding the issue of costeffectiveness, it is clear that administrators play an important role in the promotion
and success potential of blended learning. Among other things, institutional goals
and policies may seek to promote personal agency and increased learner
responsibility for their own learning. Many educational institutions also seek to
reach as many potential students as possible, which means that access and flexibility
are likely to be prioritized by administrators. Regarding some scholars‟ review of
BL studies, Bliuc, Goodyear and Ellis (2007) asserted the vital role of the teacher
by demonstrating that “a substantial portion of the literature is written by teachers
researching their own innovative educational practice” (p. 232).
In the words of Osguthorpe and Graham (2003), teachers may be attracted to
BL thanks to its benefits such as improving pedagogy, providing greater access to
knowledge, and facilitating increased opportunities for social interaction. As

different researchers focus on a multitude of variables, factors, and variants of

14


instructional approaches in an attempt to gain knowledge about the usefulness of
blended learning, leading to the result of somewhat muddied researches focusing in
the area of blended learning; therefore, several researchers (Bliuc, Goodyear and
Ellis, 2007; Shea, 2007; Vignare, 2007) call for more and better research that goes
beyond to seek and to establish useful frameworks for the integration and
application of BL in education. They also believe that research should focus on key
aspects such as accessing, quality and blended learning environments.
1.2.3. Challenges to implementation of blended learning
Based on recent research on the implementation of blended learning in general
and in language education in specific, there are numerous challenges in the
implementation of blended learning in EFL education.
Challenges from students
The major student-related challenges to the implementation of blended
learning come from the students‟ lack of knowledge and skills for independent
learning and their problems with utilizing computer and Internet-based resources.
The serious and very important requirement for the success of applying blended
learning is that students are responsible for and play an active part in learning
(Alebaikan, 2010; Kaleta, Garnham & Aycock, 2005; Launer, 2010). This is
explained in details that students are aware of the learning objectives and are
encouraged to achieve these aims. They also need to have their individual learning
needs in their minds in order to choose necessary learning steps, to demonstrate,
analyze and evaluate their learning progress and to reorganise the steps if necessary
(Launer, 2010). However, not many students are able to carry out the self-regulated
learning practices required in a blended learning environment in early years of their
study. According to Alebaikan (2010), this aspect might be due to their previous

learning experiences in teacher-centred learning environments at high schools.
Alebaikan (2010), Launer (2010), Moskal & Cavanagh (2013) and Oliver &
Stallings (2014) also share the same view in their research which shows that
students face difficulties in managing time and motivating, controlling and directing

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independent learning. In particular, many students do not realise the importance or
the benefits of their self-study phase online, regarding online learning as optional or
less important than learning in face-to-face classes (Alebaikan, 2010; Comas Quinn,
2011; Murphy & Southgate, 2011; Orton Johnson, 2009). Hence, students‟ lack of
knowledge and skills in self-regulated learning could become a major challenge for
implementating blended learning. Since students have to employ technologies to
study blended courses, their lack of experience in employing computer and webbased technology for learning or their unfamiliarity with a technology-advanced
learning environment can cause difficulties for learning. The fact that students face
with technical problems when studying online such as the requirement for
additional software or problems with Internet connection and assignment
submission systems is also shown in research (Chew, 2009; Grgurović, 2010;
Larsen, 2012; Moskal & Cavanagh, 2013). Students also encounter difficulties
when making meaning out of materials presented (Oh & Park, 2009), correlate
online materials with learning in face-to-face classes or identify critical content or
resources online (Chew, 2009; Taylor & Newton, 2013).
The student-related challenges can be even more extreme in the context of
EFL education in Vietnam in which students are familiar with a teacher-controlled
learning environment where they are expected to listen and follow teachers‟
instruction to learn (Williamson, 2009). Their tendency to depend on teachers for
learning motivation and direction can hinder students from making their own
decisions on what and how to learn. While the interaction and collaboration with
teachers and peers is considered as an important potential of blended learning

environment.
Research indicates that in order to address to the challenges and minimize
such barriers to blended learning implementation, particular consideration and
attention would be needed to provide students with sufficient training and ongoing
assistance to develop their ability to carry out active and collaborative learning and
utilise technology-assisted learning environments effectively.

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