Article Preview
TopIntroduction
The flipped learning course we designed in this study uses a blended format to provide students with an integrated and more personalized learning experience, as research shows that blended learning instruction can improve pedagogy, increase access, and provide flexibility (Graham, Allen, and Ure, 2003). The flipped-blended model can make the transition to fully online easy and smooth (Jaramillo Cherrez, 2020) facilitating teaching and learning at a distance, such as in the critical situation resulting from the current pandemic. Flipped learning and blended learning have been widely used for teaching in different subject areas such as history, medicine, political science, actuarial science, nutritional science, education, engineering, pharmaceutics, calculus, and others in secondary schools and in institutions of higher education (Al-Zahrani, 2015; Butt, 2014; Chen Hsieh, Wu, & Marek, 2017; Gilboy, Heinerichs, & Pazzaglia 2015; Hao, 2016; Hew & Lo, 2018; Hwang, Yin, & Chu, 2019; Jungić, Kaur, Mulholland, & Xin, 2015; Karabulut-Ilgu, Jaramillo Cherrez, & Jahren, 2018). Disciplines in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) appear to have received the most attention in both the research and the practice of these approaches (Berrett, 2012), while foreign language education has recently seen an increase on the implementation of this approach.
Despite promising and insightful findings about the use of this approach as applied to various aspects of teaching foreign languages (Chen, 2014; Egbert, Herman, & Chang, 2014; Harvey, 2014; Hung, 2017; Lee & Wallace, 2017; Leis, Cooke, & Tohei, 2015), few studies focused on the design and the process of implementation of the flipped-blended model. The scarcity of empirical research on the design of flipped learning that builds upon theoretical foundations from second language learning and instructional design with a focus on cognitive processes warrants a study on the seamless integration of the component. A study of this nature can demonstrate the integration of the online and the Face-to-Face (FTF) learning components in a way that provides students with solid foundations and scaffolding of the content they learn online to actively participate in the dynamic, in-class interactions. When well designed, a flipped learning approach can offer pedagogical benefits (van Alten, Phielix, Jansen, Kester, 2019). Thus, to fulfil the gap in the literature, our study takes a first step and explores learners’ perceptions and experiences in a flipped-blended Chinese-as-a-Foreign-Language (CFL) course.