From Blended to Virtual Learning: Lessons learned from a workshop series for language enhancement

The past decades have witnessed great advances in the development of tools and resources for blended and virtual learning designs: the latter, in particular, have become a daily reality for many educational institutions during COVID-19. This study reports findings obtained from action research on a language enhancement workshop programme, a Chinese writing and translation workshop, which was carried out under the environment of blended and then virtual learning in AY2018/19 and AY2019/20, respectively. Through results obtained from the analysis of feedback gathered from participants of each workshop session, the study identified the challenges and merits associated with the two types of learning, as well as those of skill- and topic-based training. The study also addresses issues relating to the extracurricular training of learners from different backgrounds and discusses ways to better cope with a mixed-background educational setting in the future. Teachers need to be more creative and develop adaptable pedagogies. Institutional and technology support are equally important to better facilitate learners of different needs.