Creative Education
2012. Vol.3, No.4, 503-506
Published Online August 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2012.34076
Copyright © 2012 SciRe s . 503
An Empirical Study of Blended Teaching Model in University
English Teaching
Shenying Jiang, Danli Li
College of Foreign Languages, Shenyang Aerospace University, Shenyang, China
Received June 11th 2012; revised July 20th, 2012; accepted July 30th, 2012
It has been seven years since Education Ministry issued College English Curriculum Trail Requirements.
It is of manifest necessity to conduct a survey about the effective application under blended teaching
model in common university. This paper adopts consecutive three years’ empirical study of blended
teaching model and analyzes the data from both English teachers’ and students’ viewpoint. Then it dis-
covers some problems and proposes corresponding suggestions with the purpose to facilitate the im-
provement of the English teaching in universities.
Keywords: Blended Teaching Model; English Teaching; Empirical Study
Introduction
With the deeper development of the education reform In
2004 the Education Ministry issued College English Curricu-
lum Requirements (For Trial Implementation) and pointed out
“The new model should be built on modern information tech-
nology, particularly network technology, so that English lan-
guage teaching will be, to a certain extent, free from the con-
straints of time or place and geared towards students’ individu-
alized and autonomous learni ng.” In this requirement, it showed
that new teaching model required college English teachers to
combine regular teaching with multimedia teaching. In addition,
they should link students’ self-learning with their guide. Fur-
thermore they must pay more attention to not only what they
taught but also how they taught. Under this model the students
can improve their English level in listening, speaking, reading,
writing and translating.
The topic of this thesis is chosen. But whether the hardware
of colleges and students’ skills to use the internet and learning
styles are appropriate to carry out blended learning remains
unanswered. If all these conditions are good, how do teachers
efficiently carry out their blended teaching? What kinds of roles
do teachers play? This paper is based on blended teaching
model and analyze datum through questionnaire. Then it tries to
find some problems and give some suggestions in order that
college English teaching in China is going smoothly.
Research Design
Although blended teaching is a new pattern, it has aroused
the attention at home and abroad, because it is in accordance
with the current learning paradigm shift (from teacher-centered
to student-centered change). Some foreign researchers have
done researches in the field of higher education and enterprise
training. In China it was Kekang He (2004a, 2004b) who firstly
proposed it in Journal of China Educational Technology. Since
then the colleges and universities have changed a lot in English
teaching. It is necessary to survey the present situation of the
application under blended teaching model in common college
and university. The concrete questions of the survey are as
follows:
What is the attitude of common college English teachers and
students towards blended teaching?
How is blended teaching model applied?
How is the overall effect of teaching under blended teaching?
Teachers participating in this study (in July, 2010) are 30
comprehensive English teachers who come from Shenyang
Aerospace University and teach freshman and sophomore. The
age of them is from 28 to 55. Their titles of a technical post are
composed of 1 professor, 11 vice professors and 18 lecturers.
The results of the 30 questionnaires are effective.
Besides, there was the feedback of 1221, 1342, 1538 ques-
tionnaire in year 2008, 2009, and 2010 from freshmen in Shen-
yang Aerospace Unive r si ty.
This paper analyzes the empirical data from both English
teachers and students’ standing point.
Empirical Analysis of English Teachers’
Feedback
Teachers’ Attitudes to Blended Teaching Model
When the teachers were asked to answer their attitude to
blended teaching model, 70% of them are positive (approved
greatly and 26.66% approved). They all agreed that bended
teaching model were good for the students. It could helpful for
students to develop their ability in learning English.
Teachers’ Ability to Use Computer and Internet
It is necessary to survey English teachers’ ability to use com-
puter and internet in modern ages.
Survey showed 86.66% of English teachers used computers
to process words; 100% received and sent E-mail; 96.66%
sought English materials on the internet; but only16.66% used
computers to chat with friends and 20% to edit courseware. It
showed that the teachers had ability to use the computer to do
some simple things. But they didn’t spend much time in editing

S. Y. JIANG, D. L LI
and improving the courseware.
Teaching Methods and Effect of Teaching
When it comes to the teaching methods that the teachers of
intensive reading adopt and the effect that the students get, the
surveys’ result showed the teaching methods that the teachers
took were not diversified. Text explanation and task-based
teaching were the most popular methods (100% and 80%).
Group-discussion was another popular one (76.66%). Vocabu-
lary explanation was still taken (63.33%). But percentage of
using computer (only 63.33%) to finish teaching was lower
than it had been expected. Only 10% of the teachers use pro-
ject-based teaching. As a result self-study ability of students is
not improved fully. The teachers and the students do not make
full use of computer. The effect of teaching is not satisfied.
Empirical Analysis of Students’ Questionnaire
Data Resource of Students’ Feedback
With the purpose to explore the effect of blended teaching
model from students’ viewpoint, we conducted the survey by
using questionnaire among the freshmen during consecutive
three years’ time at every end of semester after they experi-
enced the blended teaching model for at least half a year time,
and collected effective feedback of 1221, 1342, 1538 question-
naire in year 2008, 2009, and 2010. Students are asked to com-
plete the about 10 minutes’ survey independently at the semes-
ter’s last class, and submit the result through paper or online.
The freshmen are from different cities in mainland of China and
some of them are exchange students from Korea, Arab, and
India, etc.
Students’ Attitudes to Blended Teaching Model
The student attitude survey of blended teaching method’s
result is showed in Table 1.
Since College English is kind of compulsory course of all the
majors, the freshmen are from almost all kinds of majors in
university, we are able to utilize the comprehensive and exten-
sive-reaching student resource and investigate the students’
attitudes towards blended teaching model. We ignored the dis-
crepancies of the attitudes from different majors, but consider
all of them into one group for the consideration of that all the
freshmen have experienced a different study mode in the col-
lege compared with the method adopted in high school, and the
difference in majors does not play a material part in students’
attitude towards the blended teaching model.
Indicator of Blended Teaching Model
Different from teachers’ survey, we chose some other indi-
cators as blended teaching model from student aspect, including
the help of text preparation and review by oneself using the
provided software from the textbook, the accompanied online
system to practice the listening and speaking for each unit, the
submission of some assignment such as writing or presenta-
tion’s power point and report during the teaching and learning
process.
We also chose some other indicators students may use in
daily life to facilitate the learning ability and stimulate the
studying initiative, including the public mailbox online which is
usually shared by a class for the transmission of lecture note
from teachers or some other school issues, the post digest sent
by school or university daily or weekly dependent on students’
choices to post the forthcoming events, the transcript release
and the notification system enable students to check the exami-
nation result online, the communication through school email
or other method among students and with teachers about the
kinds of issues.
All eight indicators composed the whole blended teaching
model faced by students and provided an effective credible re-
sult of students’ attitude towards the blended teaching model.
Analysis of the Students’ Attitudes
The feedback demonstrated that most of the students con-
sider the blended teaching model was effective and beneficial
to them. As for the English text study part, the preparation and
review played the almost same importance in study process in
about 70% beneficial percentage for continuous three years’
period. The online practice showed a little higher opposite atti-
tude, when asked the reason they reacted oppositely towards the
online practice, most of them complained about the usage
method of the online practice system and the not fast enough
university internet speed, which compelled them to do the ever
unit’s homework to spend more time or try to do same work
twice due to the unsuccessful submission. However, it still
Table 1.
Students’ feedback on blended teaching modle.
Contents Not Really Neutral Beneficial
Percentage 2008 2009 2010 2008 2009 2010 2008 2009 2010
Preparation before class 4.59 9.91 7.41 23.18 22.28 24.77 72.24 67.81 67.82
Review after class 1.80 5.81 13.13 24.41 20.57 19.77 73.79 73.62 67.10
Online listening, speaking, etc. 16.71 11.33 5.98 14.58 14.83 15.86 68.71 73.85 78.15
Submission assignment through internet 18.02 20.94 15.73 16.63 17.36 25.68 65.36 61.70 58.58
Public mailbox online 1.80 11.10 3.97 8.03 7.90 14.50 90.17 81.00 81.53
Post digest ( daily or weekly) 21.70 4.69 19.44 32.60 44.26 29.45 45.70 51.04 51.11
Transcript/Notification 3.60 2.61 3.71 4.42 17.06 5.79 91.97 80.33 90.51
Communication 19.90 10.80 16.06 25.23 30.48 16.78 54.87 58.72 67.17
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S. Y. JIANG, D. L LI
showed that students’ attitude towards the online learning very
positive for the reason that they may control the academic pro-
gress, while some students may not pay enough attention to the
preparation or review of textbook, it is a regret that not all stu-
dents achieve excellent scores by using blended teaching and
learning effectively.
As for the other part other than text learning, students held
the opinion the most beneficial parts were public mailbox and
transcript notification, while they found the post digest and
communication less beneficial to them. The reasons for this
were diversified. In the internet age, students faced up with
kind of information overload and may not pay enough concern
on the post digest for the college’s events. Some of them chose
to focus on study but not extra-curriculum activities, they vol-
untarily decided to neglect some information or news of events,
they felt the post digest was not beneficial to their daily life or
study process.
But as for the public mailbox and transcript notification, stu-
dents showed supportive attitude towards them. These two
methods were shortcuts of collecting information and efficient
to let students know the of importance information even if they
were out of campus. These two parts won the most supportive
voice in blended teaching model.
Suggestions
Strengthening Conceptions of Blended Teaching
In the study, six conceptions of teaching were identified by
Robert. A. Ellis, 2006: 1) Teaching as transmitting concepts of
the syllabus; 2) Teaching as transmitting the teachers’ knowl-
edge; 3) Teaching as helping students acquire concepts of the
syllabus; 4) Teaching as helping students acquire teacher
knowledge; 5) teaching as helping students develop concep-
tions; 6) Teaching as helping students change conceptions. The
most significant qualitative shift in the above categories occurs
between categories (4) and (5), in which the perspective of the
category moves from the teacher to the student.
Strengthening the Conception of the Teacher Role
in Teaching
The teachers play an important role in their teaching. Under
the network multimedia teaching environment, the teacher no
longer is the knowledge instruction leader, also no longer is the
sole source from which students gain knowledge. The teacher is
acting organizer and the guide of the teaching environment and
the course content. He is a modifier for the study goal of stu-
dents. He is also a supervisor and controller of what students
will learn. He can make a reasonable suggestion for students
and help students to establish the appropriate goal.
Strengthening Fostering Students’ Self-Study Ability
Compared with abroad universities, most of our universities
focus more on students’ scores, especially common colleges. In
order to meet the demands of the society after students graduate
from their colleges, the teacher must strengthen fostering stu-
dents’ self-study ability. Teachers may often apply project-
based teaching (Figure 1).
From the chat flow it shows that after the teacher and stu-
dents finish what they should do, on the one hand teacher plays
an important role in his teaching. On the other hand students
Figure 1.
Flow chart of fostering students’ self-study ability.
not only learn how to deal with problems and how to study by
themselves, but also learn how to cooperate with others. In this
way stud ents’ self-st udy ability is strengthen ed. Their a bility of
solving problems and cooperating with others is developed.
Improving Hardware Equipment and Developing
Software Resources
To meet the needs of teache rs and students, it is more impor-
tant for the common colleges and universities to put money into
updating hardware equipment to raise the speed of the internet
and developing software resources. In order to improve the
teaching internet in the university further. System administra-
tors should think seriously student’s comments and suggestions,
further modifying and improving the design of platform inter-
face interaction so as to make the system operation more accord
with the needs of students. Besides they should improve learn-
ing function of the internet system, such as providing modify-
ing assignments online and learning related social networking,
developing instant questions answered software and so on.
They should provide training and technical services to the
teachers in order to promote intercommunicating teachers and
students online. Only in this way can teachers and students
make full use of multimedia and internet
Conclusion
It can be concluded that bended teaching model is very help-
ful to teachers and students with the further development of the
information technology. Teachers must try to master the use of
the computer and make full use of multimedia and internet to
carry out teaching so as to make their lessons more diversified,
informative, and above all more interesting. In addition, teach-
ers should strengthen conception of their roles and play an im-
portant role in teaching.
As saying says, “Give a man a fish, you have fed him for to-
day. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.”.
For a teacher how to teach is more important than what to teach.
The teacher should teach students methods to study rather than
contents to study. Last but not the least teacher should try to
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S. Y. JIANG, D. L LI
combine the advantage of traditional teaching model with
blended teaching model in teaching in order to foster students
that society needs.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank my friend Professor Danli LI, for her guid-
ance and suggestions, in particular, for her encouragement to-
wards this topic, careful assistance regarding revisions, valu-
able insights, and general support in all areas of the work and
study required to complete my thesis. I also thank 30 teachers
and more than 4000 students in my university who take part in
questionnaire, which helps me finish my paper in time.
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Ellis, R. A. (2006). Teacher conceptions of blended learning, blended
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He, K. K. (2004a). New development of educational technology from
the viewpoint of blending learning (the first part). CET China Edu-
cational Technology, 5-14.
He, K. K. (2004b). New development of educational technology from
the viewpoint of blending learning (the second part). CET China
Educational Technology, 10-15.
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