オンライン英語コースを援用したスピーキング授業の実践 : ALC NetAcademy NEXT 総合英語トレーニング中級コースの活用

This paper reports a classroom practice in which an online English learning course, the ALC NetAcademy NEXT intermediate course, was used for blended learning with regular English speaking classes. Students were required to study one unit from listening, speaking, and grammar sub-courses before coming to the class. In the class, the students’ learning was checked using a variety of activities, including quizzes. For grammar, a grammar quiz was administered. For listening, students took a dictation with blanks to fill in. For speaking, an instructor individually checked students’ pronunciation of English sentences by using the “Grugru method.” This blended learning lasted for 15 weeks. The speaking classes and online English learning course were evaluated by students’ responses to a questionnaire and an online learning log. The results showed that the students considered the combined speaking classes and online learning course to be a useful and effective way of improving their English skills. The learning log indicated that the listening sub-course was the one most accessed and learned by the students. The students accessed every unit of the grammar sub-course, but the time they spent on it gradually decreased towards the end of the semester. The speaking sub-course was not accessed or learned by the students as much as expected. The final section of the paper discusses some issues impeding students’ online learning and suggests some improvements for future practice.