European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching ISSN: 2537 - 1754 ISSN-L: 2537 - 1754 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu Volume 2 │ Issue 3 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1034563 LANGUAGE LEARNING UNDER CLASSROOM CONDITIONS DURING THE TRANSITION TO HYBRID INSTRUCTION: A CASE-STUDY OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY Lisbeth O. Swain1, Timothy D. Swain2i DePaul University, 1 Department of Modern Languages, Chicago IL, USA Northwestern University, 2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Applied Sciences, Chicago, IL. USA Abstract: We examined the unmanipulated performance of students under real classroom conditions in order to assess the effect of a technology-enhanced hybrid learning approach to second language, (L2) instruction on beginning and advanced Spanish language learners. This research focused on the transition period of technology implementation when the entire section of Spanish of a modern language department of a liberal arts university transitioned from traditional face-to-face instruction, to a technology-enhanced hybrid learning approach with concurrent reduction in face-toface classroom hours. This implementation provided an opportunity to compare the performance of students prior to and during the transition to hybrid model of instruction across multiple language proficiency levels. This research is designed to critically evaluate the performance of students under real classroom conditions in order to examine the effectiveness of a hybrid approach during its implementation such that the performance of students participating in the methodological transition can be understood in light of the performance of students in the previous quarters. The results indicate that introductory students did not realize the full potential benefits of hybrid instruction in the transition period, but that the performance of advanced students was Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 49 Lisbeth O. Swain, Timothy D. Swain LANGUAGE LEARNING UNDER CLASSROOM CONDITIONS DURING THE TRANSITION TO HYBRID INSTRUCTION: A CASE-STUDY OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY improved, suggesting that a phased-in approach to hybrid instruction implementation, where advanced students are the first to transition to hybrid instruction, may supplement training experiences for instructors and support staff and improve overall student success during technology implementation. Keywords: real classroom conditions, computer assisted language learning, online workbook, technology-enhanced hybrid learning, class performance, technology effectiveness 1. Introduction Technological advancements enhance modern teaching practices with emerging technologies that alter the language teaching environment with new products and applications for computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Educational institutions are adapting their pedagogies to incorporate these new teaching-technologies, which have become increasingly more complex and individualized. As educational institutions adopt technology-enhanced pedagogies, a common trend is to transition from a fully face-to-face traditional course design to a hybrid design where a portion of the instruction, and associated exercises, are transferred to a digital system that become the responsibility of the student to perform outside of the classroom. This approach reserves valuable and finite classroom time for complex communicative tasks and interactions with the instructor and among students, while shifting basic vocabulary and grammar content introduction outside the classroom. Transitioning to hybrid courses has the potential to improve student satisfaction (Kulik & Kulik, 1987; Strambi & Bouvet, 2003) and learning (Kulik, 2003; Zhao, 2003) by strategically dividing instruction into tasks that can be accomplished individually with pre-programed instructor support and tasks that require dynamic interactions with the instructor and classmates. While there are clear theoretical and empirical benefits to transitioning to a hybrid instructional approach (Adair-Hauk, Willingham-McLain, & Youngs, 2000; Warschauer & Meskill, (2000). Green & Youngs, 2001; Salaberry, 2001; Moore et al, 2002; Zhao, 2003; Kulik, 2003; Garrett, 2009; Howard & Scott, 2017) the education outcomes for students who participated under real classroom conditions remains unclear. From the perspective of students whose primary focus is successful language acquisition, there are two critical phases to assess: the transition phase where students, instructors, and support staff are implementing hybrid technologies for the first time, and the European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching - Volume 2 │ Issue 3 │ 2017 50 Lisbeth O. Swain, Timothy D. Swain LANGUAGE LEARNING UNDER CLASSROOM CONDITIONS DURING THE TRANSITION TO HYBRID INSTRUCTION: A CASE-STUDY OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY continuing phase where instructors and support staff, and some students, are more experienced with the hybrid technologies and their use. There is some evidence that the full benefits of hybrid instruction are not realized until after the transition phase (Sagarra & Zapata, 2008; Arvan & Musumeci, 2000, Swain, 2014) therefore examination of students who participated in the initial implementation of hybrid instruction provides an opportunity to identify which students are most successful under transition conditions. These data can then be used to make specific recommendations about how similar transitions can be most successfully structured, i.e., which groups of students might be best served leading the transition within the department and which students might be best served by only transitioning after the additional earned experience of the instructors and support staff. The primary purpose of the study is to quantify the performance of diverse students that participated, under real classroom conditions where their primary motivation was language acquisition, in the transition from face-to-face instruction to hybrid instruction to identify which students were most successful during the transition phase. Previous research has mostly focused on investigating hybrid instruction under laboratory conditions; however, several authors have called for additional information collected under real classroom conditions that could help us to understand how applicable our laboratory observations are to the experiences of actual students. Foster (1993 & 1998) questioned if communicative tasks studied under laboratory settings would find similar results under real classroom conditions, and identified contrary results between laboratory and real classroom conditions. Grgurović (2013) emphasized the need for empirical research under classroom conditions, indicating that learning in real classroom conditions is important to study in order to learn the effects of real CALL use by real classroom learners whose purpose is to learn language (p. 191), and found that the classroom setting (as opposed to a venue especially arranged for data collecting) was a significant variable with important implications. Swain (2014) examined the performance of actual L2 students under real classroom conditions in order to examine the effectiveness of two different learning-technologies that were implemented sequentially, and to examine the effects of the transitions that students experience immediately after their implementation, finding that the use of learning technologies had statistically significant effects on both assessment metrics of student performance. Although the assessment of student performance in real classrooms is clearly less controlled, and therefore more susceptible to noise in the data, these studies are important for completing the evaluation of learning technologies and testing if the European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching - Volume 2 │ Issue 3 │ 2017 51 Lisbeth O. Swain, Timothy D. Swain LANGUAGE LEARNING UNDER CLASSROOM CONDITIONS DURING THE TRANSITION TO HYBRID INSTRUCTION: A CASE-STUDY OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY patterns observed in the laboratory translate to the performance of unmanipulated students. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejfl/article/view/1125 European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching - Volume 2 │ Issue 3 │ 2017 52