STLHE 2016 SAPES

University language courses must find a way to take advantage of the ever-increasing number of students connected to online devices. In a flipped classroom, direct instruction is moved out of the classroom and takes place at home, by means of a video or a digital presentation (Bergmann & Sams, 2014). This appears, at least superficially, positive in that it maximizes class time for practice and encourages student engagement. Although it has been successfully implemented in diverse fields such as Science (Bergmann & Sams, 2014), Economics, or Math (Fulton, 2013), it has not yet been investigated in second language pedagogy, with the notable exception of Engin (2014).

In our study, we implemented both the flipped classroom methodology and the traditional (lecture-like) methodology in different sections of a Beginner’s University Spanish course in order to investigate the efficiency of each approach in a quantitative manner. In our study, 15 Spanish sections were split in two groups. 7 of these sections received the flipped classroom model approach all throughout the academic year. The other 8 sections received a traditional treatment. This talk discusses the project design and presents the results of the students’ assignments, observations and questionnaires.

Our study is pioneer in investigating the efficacy of the flipped classroom approach in the language classroom in a scientific manner. The groundbreaking amount of data (15 instructors, over 200 students, and over 1000 individual assignments) sheds light on the ever-present question of how to facilitate learning rather than just delivering content.

After this session, participants will be able to identify the strengths of the flipped classroom methodology, and assess the results of this methodology in a language class.