The constructive alignment of materials design in blended language programs

Abstract

Contemporary approaches to blended language teaching now include flipped classrooms, redesigned teaching environments and an ever-growing emphasis on student-centred pedagogies. Increasingly, too, language learning itself has come to be better understood as an emerging, social and multilayered activity. Despite the centrality of materials in language learning, however, little work to date has focused on the alignment of materials design in blended approaches to language learning outcomes. Although often presented as a straightforward process, linear processes in material design come into question when set amidst the emerging complexities of language learning in blended environments.

The aim of this thesis, therefore, is to investigate how language teachers navigate the complexities of constructive alignment and contemporary materials design practices across blended language programs. Framed by these three key concepts, I conducted a study at university in Australia using a longitudinal participatory action research. Additionally, I used ethnographic and autoethnographic techniques to interrogate aspects of alignment, materials design, and language programs. Following two cycles of qualitative data gathering and analysis, the findings of the study point to a need to embrace a fluid, iterative, and upwardly spiral model of materials design. On the basis of these findings, I propose a re-conceptualisation of materials design that seeks to illuminate the complex process inherent in teacher-led material design. A key outcome of the study points to a more realistic blended materials design framework that consists of three dimensions: socioecological, flexibility, and multimodality.