Blended Learning, Collaborative Learning, and Intercultural Communicative Competence

Blended Learning and Collaborative Learning

In today's universal world, the prominence of English can neither be denied nor ignored since English is the most communal language spoken everywhere. It is a prominent fact that English is the most broadly used language and the paramount vehicle of international communication in the world that has become the lingua franca in almost every university regardless of the program course is. Based on the Education Committee (EDCOM) Report (1991) identified English as the snag in student achievement. The demand of learning this English-taught course, especially in college, materializes international collaboration, and a growing number of opportunities for student‟s interaction with different countries students. Undoubtedly, having frequent interactions with different people from different countries is the best method to enhance one‟s overall level of intelligence (Yordanova, 2011). The output of this language must be premeditated prudently and vividly so that students can comprehend and communicate effectively and efficiently in the class and outside as well.

Collaboration is about crafting something greater between us than would have been achieved separately. Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec (2008) all stated that collaborative learning is an educational method to teaching and learning that encompasses groups of students working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or produce a product. Learning is developed when it is perceived as a collaborative and cooperative effort amongst students. The opportunity to share notions without the threat of ridicule and the freedom to respond to the ideas of others increases the complexity of thinking and deepens understanding (Tiberius & Tipping, 1990). In a classroom, students might be working in groups of two or more, communally searching for understanding, solutions, or meanings, or creating a product. Their activities often entail the exploration or application of the key ideas in the curriculum area being addressed. Instructional material may be presented to students in a variety of ways like print materials, digital media/recorded lectures (audio or video), case studies/scenarios, simulations, visualizations (illustrative pictures or graphics), and role-playing. The interaction between students and faculty the facilitator of learning, particularly informal interaction is one of the most significant factors in student motivation for learning (Tiberius & Tipping, 1990). Gabriel (2004); Johnson & Johnson (1989); Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones (2010) mentioned numerous research reports have observed that learning tends to be most efficient when students had the chance to work collaboratively, express their thoughts, confer and challenge the ideas of others, and cooperating towards a group solution to a given problem.

Collaborative learning aims to foster dialogue. Dialogue enriches understanding when learners explain each other. It helps generate a language friendly classroom. It helps to make teacher's language cognizant because they listen more to their student and respond suitably. The metamorphoses that take place between pupils talking through ideas together and then presenting them to others are brain empowering, but need to be scaffolded. Bliss & Askew (1996), Bodrova & Leong (1998) and Palincsar (1998) all said that scaffolding allows the teachers to help student‟s transformation from assisted task to independent performances. It is a progressive process that affords the learner with adequate guidance until the process is learned, and then gradually removes the supports in order to allocate the responsibility for completing the task to the student. For scaffolding to be successful, a groundwork or planned procedure must first be developed as the solid foundation (Bodrova & Leong, 1998; Elicker, 1995). The teacher must provide students with the prime amount of support necessary to complete the task, and then progressively decrease the level of assistance until the student becomes proficient of completing the activity self-sufficiently (Bodrova & Leong, 1998; Elicker, 1995). Through scaffolding, it helps learners transition from assisted to independent performance through cooperative learning, hands-on learning, and engaging learners in collaborative problem-solving that enables learners to become increasingly independent, i.e., to perform communication tasks independently (Bodrova & Leong, 1998; Elicker, 1995). Indeed, one psychologist who is best known for his sociocultural theory said "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). It was resolute that intercultural communicative competence, i.e., the knowledge, motivation, and skills needed to interact effectively and appropriately with different cultures (Wiseman, 2002, p. 208), is the extremely favored type of competence. Penbek et al., (2009, p. 3) indicated that intercultural communicative competence hones psychological adaptation, the ability to efficiently and appropriately execute communication behavior to draw a desired response in a specific environment (Chen, 1990), intercultural awareness and personal attributes like display of empathy and respect, interaction posture, orientation to knowledge, interaction management, and tolerance of ambiguity (Ruben, 1976). Through communicative competence in English, it generates comprehension, production, and interaction in this language.

In the light of the 21st century, societies are becoming increasingly culturally diverse. Consequently, school classrooms are becoming increasingly multicultural and characterized by diversity in ethnicity, religion, language, and cultural traditions (Ben-Peretz, Eilam, & Yankelevitch, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 2003). Ladson-Billings (1995) said that this growing cultural diversity in the classroom demands from teachers that they adapt their knowledge, skills, and attitudes to the challenges that emerge in these different settings so that the learning of all students in their classes is motivated. Through blended collaborative learning as modern and innovative method of delivering higher educational services that conforms to international standards specified by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO , 1998) and other international accreditation bodies, teachers in culturally diverse classrooms must have an awareness that students with different cultural and language backgrounds have different needs as well as a self-consciousness of the teacher‟s cultural frame of reference (den Brok, Hajer, & Van Eerde, 2010). Blended learning and collaborative learning hone student's intercultural communicative competence through digital space and physical classroom space platform. Learners are equipped with content, cognition, communication, and culture (Coyle, 1999). More so, correlate positively their achievement of the learning outcomes and perception of learning with the opportunities to think about or use the knowledge and information in new and different ways that will support their development of critical thinking skills. Blended learning and collaborative learning provides an option in terms of where and when students learn. They may study independently with the guidance of a teacher who grades and comments their work or they may study online, communicating with the teachers and students and students to other students "online classroom – digital space” (Dalton-Puffer, 2011). As noted above, expand access to educational services through physical classroom space learning or the use of technology to enable students to develop competencies and earn a degree.

Blended learning (BL) is an advent to education that fuses online educational materials (digital space) and traditional place-based classroom (physical classroom space) methods (Friesen, 2012). Blending learning entails the physical presence of both teacher and student, with some elements of student control over time. The application of a blended learning approach could satisfy the requirements of the new generation of students and transform traditional lectures into modern, sustainable, and technology-enhanced learning experiences (Bock et al., 2018). The traditional or physical classroom space is a kind of classroom that has desks, a teacher who explains ideas in a lecture format and then connects students through class discussions, independent work, or small group work. Moreover, this classroom contains so little or even no technology. “Online” or digital space learning program, students learn completely off-site (for example, in their homes, through Google site or Google doc), and students interact virtually both with the curriculum and their teacher-of-record. To understand more the definition, it is necessary to consider the element of blended learning, the time, place, path, and pace. Christensen, Horn, and Staker (2013) proposed four elements of blended learning, (1) Students learn on their own time without the schedule of the school day or year; (2) Students work on their speed, taking more time when needed and advancing more quickly when appropriate; (3) Students learn in the so-called brick-and-mortar school setting, but may also have opportunities to work off-site, like home or in the library, and (4) Students learn using a variety of modalities or instruction approaches. This may include large-group instruction, small-group collaboration, or individual instruction using in-person or online tools and instructional techniques.

Learning is boosted when it is perceived as a collaborative and cooperative effort between students and teachers (Tiberius & Tipping, 2010). Learning processes are social and collaborative, the participants not only benefited by their investigation but may also inform the field as a whole (Drennon & Cervero, 2002; Kasl & Yorks, 2010). Collaborative learning (CL) is an erudition milieu that requires students to collectively work towards a common academic goal and enables students to develop the important life skills of working jointly with others (teachers and students and students to students) on shared problems or challenges (Kotsopoulos, 2010). Also, Alfred (2002), underpinned interactions in his democratic classroom principles. Per se, the students and teachers worked collaboratively in making decisions about what is to be learned and how learning and assessment should occur. Moreover, pieces of research observed that learning tends to be most effective when students are given the opportunity to work collaboratively, discuss and challenge the ideas of others, express their thoughts, and work together towards a group solution to a given problem (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2010).

Blended learning and collaborative learning is an approach to learning that combines the delivery of education both within and beyond the digital space and the traditional physical classroom space. These fosters a collaborative partnership between the teachers to students and student to students (Dalton-Puffer, 2011). Blended learning and collaborative learning is a 21st-century approach to education that, in practice, through flexibility and choice, skills, passions, and the attributes of every student and their challenges and obstacle in learning (Personalized Learning Foundation, 2012). Blended learning and collaborative learning is based upon a solid foundation of the latest educational research findings of how the students learn most successfully. Collaborative learning is an education method between teaching and learning that involves groups of students working collectively to solve a problem, create a product or complete a task (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008). This kind of method to teaching and learning, which represents a meaningful transformation away from the typical teacher-centered instructional practice, is more becoming an instructional approach of choice in both the traditional face-to-face (physical classroom space) and online (digital space) education context due to the diverse positive effect it has on students' educational outcomes (Havard, Du, & Xu, 2008; Pattanpichet, 2011; Shi, Frederiksen, & Muis, 2013; Yazici, 2004).

Certain recurrently cited advantages of collaborative learning in the online environment includes the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills, the development of skills of self-reflection, and the construction of knowledge and meaning ( Gachago, Morris, & Simon, 2010). The skills achieved from collaborative learning in an online context are highly portable to team-based work environments (Shaw, as cited in Kumi-Yeboah et.al, 2017, p. 6), which are vital for the 21st-century workforce. Collaboration among students and teachers cement a student's interest and expand their knowledge on specific topics (Means et al., 2010; Smith, Clark, & Blomeyer, 2005). Several researchers have traversed students' understandings about the advantages of collaborative learning, the participation of students' in the community in collaborative learning, and the impacts of group settings on collaborative learning upshots (Du, Zhou, Xu, & Lei, 2016; Shea & Bidjerano, 2012). Previous research attested that teamwork indeed enhances the opportunities for communication between culturally diverse students (Morgan, 2005). Furthermore, Stables (2005, p. 195) avows that students should encounter difference through their work with a range of others on mutually responsive tasks. This may be accomplished by the adoption of the method of peer training that entails forums for discussion and problem-solving by students themselves through workshops and games, music and mass media, discussion or storytelling (Stables, 2005). The completion of mutually responsive tasks entails student‟s collaboration for the achievement of common goals that are set in the context of the task. Moreover, pieces of research observed that learning tends to be most effective when students are given the opportunity to work collaboratively, discuss and challenge the ideas of others, express their thoughts, and work together towards a group solution to a given problem (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2010). Thus, students participated in a group of students, with whom they exchange experiences while working together towards meeting the goals of the task. Therefore, collaboration for the completion of mutually responsive tasks not only stimulates academic development but may also promote prejudice reduction. It enhances opportunities for communication between culturally diverse students, allowing them to build an understanding of their intercultural differences and commonalities.

Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)

Interculturalists stress the dynamic nature of cultures that are an unstable mixture of sameness and otherness (Leclerq, 2002, p. 6). To empower marginalized students, interculturalism suggests that the values of social justice and equity mobilize teachers towards the transformation of their pedagogy and curriculum (Zembylas & Iasonos, 2010). Individuals from different cultures engage in has different communication practices and behaviors during interactions in learning or work milieus. Understanding intercultural communication involves a study of the links between culture and communication. Vygotsky‟s (1978) constructivist theory names the cultural and personal backgrounds of learners as quintessential factors that influence students to learn and acquire knowledge. Watson, Ho, and Raman (1994) said that culture is “the beliefs, myths, mores, norms, value systems, and structural components of a given organization, tribe, or society” (p. 46). Undoubtedly, culture is one of the major factors that influence diverse students‟ experiences in communications, and attitudes or behaviors in an online collaborative learning group (Shi, Frederiksen, & Muis, 2013), and some researchers investigated the perceptions of culturally diverse students‟ in online collaborative learning activities (Zhu, Valcke, & Schellens, 2009). Several studies asserted the following forms of communication that create problems for a culturally and racially diverse students collaborating online: (1) inability to understand specific cultural references in online discussions; (2) lack of non-linguistic cues; (3) difficulties expressing disagreement; (4) communicative constraints resulting in less substantive postings; and (5) mismatched communication patterns (i.e., use of short, content-driven contributions as opposed to long, relationship-driven contributions or vice versa (Gunawardena, 2014; Kim & Bonk, 2002). Moreover, some studies investigated the relationships between the cultural backgrounds of students and their learning experiences in an online collaborative learning environment in the subsequent categories: (1) first, the cultural differences as related to online group processes (Anakwe, 1999); (2) second, how the cultural backgrounds of the collaborative partners affect their actions, behaviors, and commitment in the online collaborative environment (Kim & Bonk, 2002; Oetzel, Ting-Toomey, Masumoto, Yukochi, Pan, Takai, & Wilcox, 2001); and (3) lastly, the differences in the motivation of the students to work within an online collaborative learning environment (Wang, 2007). The results from several studies (Kim & Bonk, 2002; Zhao & McDougall, 2008; Zhu, Valcke, & Schellens, 2009) have betokened that cultural factors play an important role in how students perceive and share knowledge in online collaborative learning activities. However, they failed to acknowledge the students' perceptions from culturally diverse backgrounds related to online collaborative learning activities as well as the influence it had on their academic performance (Weinberger, Stegmann, & Fischer, 2007). Additionally, there were only a few experimental studies have been conducted about culturally diverse students' perceptions of online collaborative learning activities (Shi, Frederiksen, & Muis, 2013).

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