A blended practice-enterprise course for language learning in an international business community

Abstract

This paper presents the experiences and results from the LLP-project PELLIC. The aim of the project was to make full use of the learning potential of practice enterprise methodology for communicative language learning by organizing and supporting virtual international business interaction within a blended learning scenario. “Practice enterprise” is a practical-oriented teaching method with a strong focus on authenticity, which is conceptually related to task-based learning approaches (e.g. Willis and Willis, 2008). Results are based on the project’s piloting phase during which learners in four European countries became “virtual entrepreneurs”. The target language of the course was English, the lingua franca of international business. Learners’ interactions were supported by a customized virtual learning environment (VLE), based on the open source course management system Moodle, enhanced and adapted to suit the pedagogic needs of the scenario by integrating additional collaboration tools (Google Applications, Skype, etc). Along with a range of openly accessible e-learning contents, focus activities and resources, e-learning tasks were developed as “blueprints” to guide educators in adapting, re-purposing and extending materials and methodology for their own teaching. The article highlights the role of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in creating opportunities for learner output, the teacher’s role as a facilitator of the learners' project work, and the function of re-usable e-learning contents and activity formats for authentic autonomous and collaborative language learning.