Blended Learning as a Means of Foreign Students’ Integration into a University Educational Process

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of blended learning as a means of foreign students’ integration into higher school environment. This process is not that simple, it demands special methods to help foreign students to be integrated easily. The use of blended learning in education facilitates easy students’ integration and leads to positive learning results. However, the application of blended learning is connected with challenges both educators and foreign students can face. The aim of the article is to consider and assess the use of blended learning at the lessons of English implemented into a university educational process. For that purpose, we applied such methods as a needs analysis (among lecturers of English from South Ural State University), a questionnaire and an interview (among three groups of students from similar bachelor’s programs). The findings show that the majority of those surveyed do understand the importance of blended learning as a means of foreign students’ integration, but they are not familiar with the types and how to use them. Based on the results of this analysis, the authors applied blended learning into the process of English teaching, such as flipped classroom, station rotation, and a new online language development course, “Methodological support to the textbook by McCarthy, M. “Touchstone”. The drawn conclusions indicate that blended learning allows not only to boost foreign language skills, but to promote easy foreign students’ integration into the educational process of the university.