Employing Blended Learning Format in a Professional English Course for Engineering Students

Abstract

The study explores the effects of employing the blended learning format in teaching professional English to Master’s degree students of engineering at St.Petersburg State Marine Technical University (Russia). The choice of this format was determined by the necessity to solve the problem of students’ self-study hours far exceeding the number of classroom hours, which was rather limited. The role of the computer-mediated component was played by the international platform new.edmodo.com. The survey results showed that the platform proved really helpful with the senior students the course was designed for, despite the fact that an electronic format limited the scope of possible answers, setting certain restrictions on the development of academic skills. The success of our experimental teaching inspired us to apply the same format within Bachelor’s degree courses, where the effect turned out to be less significant however, partly due to a greater number of classroom hours.