Feasibility Analysis of Flipped Classroom in Chinese Adult English Training

Flipped teaching has gained a growing popularity, starting from higher education and coming all the way down the academic pyramid to the primary schooling. Evidence has shown that positive results are produced in improving learning results. However, it remains to be seen whether these developments can be extended to the training outside of traditional academic settings and realize its full potential in adult English class. Therefore, essential features of the flipped classroom, adult English teachers, adult English learners and learning environment in the private language education institutions are presented to analyze the feasibility.

Y. Li disappointment to disproportionate stress on grammar but insufficient attention to practical skills [3]. Ma puts forward some general principles such as engaging adult English learners, updating and adjusting teaching materials to ameliorate the situation [4]. However, remedial measures easy to operate for teachers and learners are urgently needed to enhance the experience and improve the learning of adult English trainees, an understudied and neglected population of English learners in the research literature. Fortunately, the flipped classroom originating from traditional academic settings could provide a solution to this conundrum.

Flipped Classroom
Scholars have not reached a consensus on the definition of flipped classroom, also called inverted classroom. The widely recognized one was given by Maureen et al. from the perspective of class procedures, saying "Inverting the classroom means that events that have traditionally taken place inside the classroom now take place outside the classroom and vice versa" [5]. This means that practice exercise or problem solving previously completed by learners outside the classroom now take place inside the classroom with teachers and students present, assistance and guidance available. What used to be taught by the teacher in the form of lecture during the class are replaced by recorded video lessons viewed by learners after class. This definition sheds light on the re-ordering of in-class and after-class activities, but flipped classroom is more than that. Bishop and Verleger formulate a broader definition [6]. They propose that inside class activities include questions and answers and also group-based or open-ended problem solving while outside class learners focus on video lectures and practice exercises and close-ended quizzed.

The Origin and Development
Flipping teaching has generally gone through three stages.
At the very beginning, it was Eric Mazur, a physics professor from Harvard University who took advantage of computers and Internet to foster active learning by establishing computerized voting system and peer instruction model in 1990s. This brand-new approach animated traditional classes featured with monotonous lectures because it gave full play to autonomy and collaboration. His idea resonated with Alison King's appeal for teachers being a guide beside students instead of a sage on the podium. Later, other three teachers from Miami University also adopted this method in their course of an introduction to economy. So far, the flipped teaching was still at its embryonic stage when this approach was mainly applied in higher education due to the limited access to computers and Internet. and Aaron Sams, two chemistry teachers in American Lincoln Highland high school recorded video classes initially for students who missed the class due to horrible weather, sports training or other school events so that they could save themselves from repetitive make-up lessons [7]. It turned out that those videos were also welcomed by students who had joined the class. These two teachers were inspired and encouraged by this large number of hits. They started uploading lecture videos and assigning them as homework before the class so that they could devote a larger proportion of in-class time to group work for problem-solving or project-making during which teachers could observe the class and provide guidance and explanation if intervention is called for. Jonathan and Aaron are forerunners in flipped instruction and set a good example for other teachers in primary and secondary education within America.

The Features
However, the aforementioned definition is criticized too simple, covering the superficial characteristics of teaching procedures but overlooking the underlying attributes of flipped education. Yarbro stressed the significance of active learning and proposed a theory of four pillars (F-L-I-P) for flipped instruction: F for flexible environment, L for learning culture, I for intentional learning, P for professional educator [9]. His theory is complemented by Chen et al (2014) who add three more pillars (P-E-D) to make it more comprehensive: P for progressive activities, E for engaging experience, D for diversified platform [10]. From their theories, highlights of flipped classroom are self-revealing.

Y. Li
knowledge to the students. Instead of being the porter of knowledge, they become the facilitator, the counselor and the guide. However, this does not make teachers less relevant in the class. On the contrary, their job has become more demanding than before. First, they have to choose proper intentional learning content and decide which part should be delegated as in-class and out-class work. In this way, they can make sure the class-time is maximized and student-centered approach is applied. The content of intentional learning for videos after class hours comes from two sources. One is that teachers can choose to make their own video courses, which turns them into the designer and developer of video materials. The other option is that educators can exploit a sea of materials online, which makes them the selector and editors of online resources. It is easier said than done since two aspects are worth means it starts with lead-in and ends in summary or short review [11]. Under such circumstances, the two routes require instructors to be computer literate and have basic information processing capacity. However, the most daunting task for teachers in flipped classroom is not preparing for recorded learning materials before the class but designing tightly related and relevant activities (which have to be progressive in one class and for the whole semester) such as role play, debate, interview or public speaking to ensure that learners can apply what they have learned in the videos into real life situations. Successful in-class tasks command teachers to develop superb skills to carry out activities such as giving clear instructions and progressing from low to high risk activities as well as to manage a chaotic class such as observing the class consistently and giving comments and feedback instantly.

Changes in Students' Role
Because the learning processes are completely rearranged, the role that the learners play also changes. In the traditional classroom, students are passive recipients of knowledge, preoccupied with transferring what is on teachers' PPT to their own notebooks word by word, while students become initiators, dominators and creators in the flipped teaching model. Outside the class, they learn at an individualized pace. Since the video lectures are always there, they can decide when and where to watch them and can also control how much and how fast they view the lectures. It is completely self-tuned and students can pause, backward, replay or slow down when they come to the parts where they find trouble in understanding the concepts or they can fasten the video or jump the part they find easy. Plus, they will find it rather convenient to review the lesson any time they need. In the physical class, most of work is done by collaboration and cooperation through which team members explore topics in greater details and solve problems in more effective way. In the process, the social interaction involving differentiated ways of persuading others and presenting ideas inspires everyone in the group so that meaningful and personal learning are more likely to occur. What's more, the teamwork offers a perfect opportunity for instructors and peers to check self-directed learning effectiveness. If they fail to prepare themselves for the brainstorming or hands-on practice in class, they will disappoint their peers and drag the whole team down when competition is involved. Next time, they will not miss any important video class and may even search for more information so as to bring more insights to the table before they are geared up for any pair work or group work. As it can be seen, autonomy plays a role in either major component of the flipped classroom. Before class, learners are counted on to take initiative to finishing the video lectures. In that case, they are able to engage themselves fully in the interaction and communication among teachers and learners. Therefore, learners have to take full responsibility for themselves and their team members.

Changes in Learning Environment
Firstly, in the flipped teaching model, knowledge is transferred to students via recorded videos before class to reduce teacher talk time and increase student talk time when class meets. This goal can be achieved without sacrificing the quantity of knowledge delivered to the students. With the learning procedures inverted and learning time redistributed, the practice literally increases the accumulative length of learning time in a covertly way by promising a flexible learning time schedule. Secondly, the priority of the class is to facilitate students to internalize what they have learned from the recorded courses by maximizing interaction among students and teachers. To that end, the class usually starts with students raising questions based on the video content and teachers responding to perplexing issues. Then the class proceeds with project-based or problem-based learning which promotes automatization (turn declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge). At this stage, seats are rearranged and settings are flexible so that groups can gather around to complete the task. Sometimes more space is saved for group presentation or intergroup cooperation. Thirdly, the interaction is not confined to physical class. It can also exist on the digital platforms which are supposed to be diversified and seamless. With a wide range of smartphone apps and laptop software at their disposal, teachers have no problem in guaranteeing the diversification. What is worth noticing is that they have to make sure the platforms seamless, convenient, ubiquitous and flexible without overwhelming their students with various platforms The principles guiding the flipped language classroom are grounded in theories, which proves that the flipped model is not irrational approach but scientifically based method.

Interaction Hypothesis
From the perspective of second language acquisition, interaction hypothesis,

Taxonomy of Cognitive Domain
Another influential theory that applies to this teaching model is Bloom's revised taxonomy of cognitive domain. Learning falls into six levels (from the lowest level to the highest level): remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating [13]. In the traditional classroom, most of time is devoted to the lower-order thinking through face-to-face lectures when students are required to recognize, recall and understand the messages they obtain from the teacher as well as through question and answer sessions when students are expected to display their understanding and interpret the basic concepts of what they have learned. It can be clearly seen that little time is saved for practicing the higher level cognitive domain. In most cases, teachers will leave that part for homework, which obviously is not an optimal choice since teachers are most needed but not readily available. However, the flipped language teaching consists of two major components: in-class activi-

Adult English Teachers in Chinese Private Language Schools
The major difference between teachers in Chinese public schools and private training institutions is the sense of threat and the desire for challenges. To establish and sustain their presence in the market, private language training institutes in China give priority to managing their human resource, especially the teaching staff who determine whether their clients will stay or leave. One of the policies is a strict reward and punishment system to the effect that teachers who help their learners achieve the target goals will be rewarded or get a salary raise and vice versa. To survive in the fierce competition with their counterparts and to climb higher on the career ladders, adult English teachers in these facilities are willing to take challenges and accept new things in the hope to help adult learners to improve their English level. Incentivized by the external and material rewards as well as internal and spiritual accomplishments, they also excel at making innovations by integrating their previous language learning experience and existing professional expertise with emerging teaching approaches to solve learners' problems. On top of that, these teachers have no difficulty in handling office technology including making powerpoints, searching information as well as obtaining and processing multimedia materials and resources.
In a nutshell, instructors who teach adult English in private language centers are qualified to adopt the new approach when software and hardware are all set. The strong motivation, instrumental or integrative, will lead to positive learning attitudes and high self-efficacy, which breeds commitment to completing video courses and engaging in interactive activities and thus facilitates learning process and results in the flipped learning journey.

Self-Directedness
Adults are featured with an independent self-directing personality. As an independent person, adults believe that they are able to take responsibility for the consequences of their own decisions and actions. Therefore, they hope others to respect and acknowledge their independent status and social functions when they are engaged in the social activities. If they are confronted with obstacles, they expect guidance and help from their teachers, instead of orders from authoritative figures. This character can be attended to in the flipped classroom characterized with the student-centered teaching model advocating for teachers being a guide on the side instead a sage on the stage.
Therefore, teachers would not be dictators in the class but friends to learners in a democratic learning atmosphere.
In addition, this self-directedness endows adults with large self-learning capacity including skills to employ strategies. They are able to monitor and reflect on their own learning process in a self-regulated way and adjust their learning strategies in a timely fashion. Therefore, they can make clear goals  In addition, the accepted body of knowledge will serve as a reference or even a decisive factor for whether they should learn the language, in which area they should deepen their expertise, and in which way they should proceed and access their learning. This may explain why they are quite demanding in choosing teachers. Considering their previous language learning experience in high school and college, they certainly do not hope teachers to occupy the precious class time to explain the grammar rules they already know or present word expressions they can find in other places free of charge, say in the dictionary or online. It is understandable that they want to maximize student talk time to gain a sense of achievement when they walk out of that

Learning Environment
When a potential customer enters one of the top language training chain-

Conclusion
The flipped learning and teaching method empowers students with autonomy and ownership inside and outside the classroom, provides learners with numerous opportunities for active and interactive learning and creates a flexible learning environment in which learners can maximize their learning efficien-