The Persian (Farsi) Language Educator’s Role in Developing Effective Blended Language Learning: From Principles to Practice

The aim of this presentation is to disseminate practices applicable for devising effective blended language learning experiences, which has proven challenging for language educators.

Throughout the presentation, the authors encourage Persian (Farsi) teachers to play a proactive role in the blending process to design blended language learning that meets outcomes and satisfy students’ communicative and collaborative needs. Teachers must commit time and effort to plan a thoughtful combination of two dissimilar environments, heretofore referred to as face-to-face and online components. Rather than simply adding or substituting, teachers must integrate and coordinate components to create a seamless whole, defined as a blended sequence, generating pedagogical benefits for each respective component. This presentation simplifies the initial steps for teachers to obtain an effective blended sequence, by illuminating them through an example of their implementation.

The first section draws on second language acquisition principles and blended learning research to identify the crucial aspects of design. Important considerations include the organisation of input, the layering of tasks, and the creation of a favourable environment. The second section is applied and describes a specific blended sequence for an intermediate-level Persian (Farsi) course as an example of implementation of the blended process. Through this illustrative example, we explain the teacher’s active involvement in organising input as well as developing and layering technology-integrated tasks that afford learning autonomy, engagement, and collaboration.

Two main aspects are at the base of the overall application process: (a) the specific teaching approaches of content-based instruction and task-based learning and teaching; and (b) the flexible blended learning environment, taking place in a teacher-led physical classroom and online.