Blended Learning: Using technology in and beyond the language classroom

Macmillan Books for Teachers

by Pete Sharma

The ideal companion for any teacher interested in the use of technology in the language classroom, Blended Learning provides a practical overview of current technology. It combines basic information for the technological novice with sophisticated ideas for using technology in the classroom.Blended learning offers practical ideas and suggestions for ways to use technology to enhance and support students' learning. Pete and Barney also examine the implications of the use of technology for language teaching methodology in general.Blended Learning is ideal Teachers already interested in using technology who want to discover new and innovative ways to use itTeachers with little experience of technology and/or feel unsure about implementing it in their classrooms.

Paperback

First published April 27, 2007

About the author

Pete started his EFL career as a business English teacher in Madrid, moving to Finland before returning to the UK. He worked as teacher trainer, Director of Studies and school manager before becoming the Group teacher training and development manager for Linguarama, a business English organisation which is now part of the Marcus Evans group. In his capacity as a member of the Group Pedagogical Unit he inspected schools, taught writing seminars in the Middle and Far East, and helped create and run trainer training courses. He has written extensively about technology in language teaching. Pete recently changed from ESP to EAP, and currently divides his time between lecturing at Oxford Brookes University and on the Warwick University pre-sessional courses, and writing. He keeps a blog on using technology in ELT with co-author Barney Barrett.

Reviews

[Betty C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was familiar with this seminar book, but I got down to read it -- at least most of it -- because I am working on a Cambridge DELTA Module Three paper on Blended Learning in English Language Teaching.

It is hard to judge the book because it is now hopelessly outdated. I was a bit disappointed that the promised "update" website does not exist, and that I didn't manage to download the updates supposedly available on the MacMillan website.

The book is a reminder, though, of how far technology has come in just 6 years. I suspect "updating" it became an impossible task.

[Charis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inevitably (given the subject matter), and as mentioned by a previous reviewer, this book (published 2007) is already extremely out of date. A teacher who is even vaguely tech-savvy won't learn much new from this book in 2014 - the ideas are fairly standard now. However, not a bad look at some of the main technology that we do use in the classroom.