В настоящее время объектом активного изучения лингводидактики стало

LEARNING AND TEACHING 
 
Topics to be discussed: 
 
1. Distance and blended learning.
2. Language learning in tandem. 
3. Module teaching 
 
Spark: 
 
1. What do you understand by the forms of teaching?
2. What can you say about types of teaching? 
3. What form of education do you prefer to improve your level 
of language proficiency? 
1. Distance and blended learning
Without doubt the use of technological and digital tools 
overcomes barriers of space and time existing in traditional learning 
and teaching as well as provides an opportunity to connect teachers, 
students and content. There are widespread talks about distance 
learning, online learning, e-learning and blended learning.
Distance learning is a system in which a teacher teaches 
students with the help of Internet, sending tasks to learners by post 
or e-mail.
It is carried out by using computer-telecommunication nets 
enabling the learners to do the tasks independently. These objectives 
are usually checked up with the help of electronic post if learners 
send them to a teacher and also during face to face talk with a 
teacher. 
The major feature of distance teaching is a mediate 
telecommunication talk “teacher – student” (See Figure 3).

Figure 3. The process of distance learning 
 

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Students stay in touch with their teachers during the period of 
distance learning and regularly send parts of their work for 
correction and, more importantly, for valuable feedback and 
encouragement. That’s why the courses of distance teaching require 
projecting the activity of a learner carefully and in detail. The course 
creates a high effective feedback and interaction between a teacher 
and the learners.
As well as making English training more cost effective, there 
are other benefits from adopting this approach. The learners are 
given a chance to: 1) think about the English language over a period 
of 12 weeks instead of just four; 2) develop organizational and study 
skills that could be of use to them and their needs/jobs; 3) develop 
confidence in their ability for self-study.
All students have an opportunity to have distance learning and 
choose the needed programs. The programs and experience in 
organizing teaching through distance have proved the effectiveness 
of it.
A teacher designs a program of teaching and a manual. For 
elementary students the manual is designed to offer both accuracy 
and fluency practice. It is also possible to use it for introduction of 
complete vocabulary and structures, providing that students can 
cope. It is more difficult, by no means impossible, to provide 
genuine communicative activities to lower-level learners. With more 
advanced students it is obviously a lot easier to introduce genuine 
communicative activities as well as accuracy and fluency practice. 
Thus, distance learning gives an opportunity to obtain the 
worldwide cultural and educational values collected in the nets of 
Internet. In such a type of education the learners can be taught by an 
experienced teacher, improve their qualification and deepen their 
professional knowledge and these factors emphasize distance 
teaching and distance learning importance. It is one of the 
Sends information 
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information 

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perspective forms of teaching and obtaining knowledge using the 
computer technologies.
Blended learning is an integrated mode which is present both 
in the face-to-face and in distance learning and perhaps the most 
efficient way to integrate the teaching and learning school without 
replacing it. 
According to some research (Sharma & Barrett, 2007; Graham, 
2004; Nicolson, Murphy & Southgate, 2011) it is found out that 
the term "blended learning" can be referred to four different 
concepts: 
1. Union or set of Web technologies (virtual classrooms, self-
learning, collaborative learning, streaming video, audio and text) for 
educational purposes. 
2. Union of pedagogical approaches (constructivism, 
behaviorism, and cognitive psychology) to produce the optimal 
teaching with or without the use of dedicated technologies. 
3. Chance to use of any form of educational technology 
(videotapes, CD-ROMs, Web teaching, movies) in courses taught 
by a teacher. 
4. Union or set of educational technology and activities to 
create a curriculum-integrated working. 
It is apparent from the definitions that the concept of blended 
learning possesses a variety of meanings for different educators, but 
all of them concern the blended learning as integrated mode which 
incorporates the face-to-face and on-line learning.
To understand the core of the blended learning, it is very 
significant to enumerate other education practices (See Figure 4) 
and state about their relations to the blended learning described by 
Staker & Horn (2012). 
The first two practices namely – traditional instruction and 
technology-rich instruction which belong to brick-and-mortar 
setting are not forms of blended learning, but they can be combined 
with online learning in order to create blended learning atmosphere.