An Empirical Study on Blended Learning Design and Practice of College English Based on WELearn Learning Platform

Abstract

Due to the rapid development of Internet technology and the popularity of smart phones, the combination of information technology and traditional teaching practice has also become more and more important, as a result, blended learning has been booming and popular in China, particularly during and post COVID-19 pandemic. With gradual decrease of class length and credits of College English course, college English teaching needs to be extended beyond lectures in class with more teaching contents to promote after-class teaching and learning. Hopefully, blended learning model based on intelligent learning platform has been a new channel to promote English learning. Based on WELearn learning platform, this study explores the blended teaching model that uses online platform and offline entity classroom, in which 4187 students are involved. The results show that relying on the massive online and offline teaching resources and various teaching task activities, it realizes the blended teaching successfully, enabling students to spend more time in their self-directed learning with higher efficiency. Meanwhile, learning process is ensured and students are much more motivated for English learning which leads to better marks in their test results. Furthermore, it is beneficial for personalized learning and teaching and for achieving objectives of college English course as well.