Flipped, Blended, and Experiential: Insights from Teaching English to University Faculty

Most research data on online, blended, and flipped classroom come separately from students and teachers. In continuing teacher development programs, most courses are focused on the methodology of teaching a specific subject, and course participants are also subject experts. Training in general topics is often planned based on experiential learning and focuses on developing subject-related activities or using learning technology. This applied small-scale research uses the data from semi-structured interviews with nine university professors who were students in an English language training project. As the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the same course was delivered in face-to-face, online, and blended modality, and a new format to teach English to adults was developed and piloted. Reflections of educators learning a subject outside their field of expertise add valuable information on different teaching modalities. Moreover, accidental experiential learning related to the use of flipped, online, and blended classroom took place for some participants. Thus, a professional development program based on a subject universally interesting to teachers may be feasible. Results also support the claim that blended learning is “the best of all worlds” and incorporating flipped classroom adds value to adult students’ experience.