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Blending Learning: Enhancing Reading Skills through Virtual Classroom during COVID-19 pandemic
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| Author:
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DR. GOMTAM MOHANA CHARYULU, DR. SHARADA ALLAMNENI, DR.M LATHA, BHARATH SAMISHETTI, K SAIKUMAR
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| Abstract:
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Thanks to the ubiquitous influence of new age Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the opening decades of 21st century have brought about a sea change in the pedagogical practices of language teachers across the world. One method, i.e., the blended model of instructional delivery is found to be more efficacious especially when engaging with the digitally savvy, post millennials. The method allows teachers to adopt the modern while retaining the best of traditional practices. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that the model has come to be seen as the most logical and natural way of learning, especially in the current context of COVID-19 lockdown. It is interesting, how teaching communities across India have started to adapt technologies at hand so quickly, to devise innovative learning solutions to meet the needs of their geographically dispersed learners. Notwithstanding the unforeseen global calamity, teachers and learners alike, have with immense enthusiasm, begun to make strategic use of technology for improving learning outcomes. The present paper discusses how reading skills of learners in the English classroom was found to have improved considerably when the appropriate context was set or some background details of the text was provided to the learners. The paper sheds light on the nature of difficulties encountered by learners while reading rather longish passages, and how by applying certain reading strategies they attempted to circumvent problems for completing the information mapping exercises based on these texts. The study was conducted by administering reading tasks both physically in the CAL Lab as well as virtually during the lockdown period. The result shows a 2.36% improvement when the blended learning method was adopted.
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| Keyword:
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Blended learning, Description, Reading skills, Technology, Virtual classroom.
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| EOI:
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| DOI:
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https://doi.org/10.31838/ijpr/2020.12.04.552
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| Download:
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