Introducing Flipped Learning to a Pre-Sessional English for Academic Purposes Course in a Research-Intensive University in England

In March 2020, as a response to COVID-19, UK education institutions rapidly adapted in-person courses to deliver what is best described as ‘emergency remote teaching’. In the context of pre-sessional (summer) courses in English for Academic Purposes, universities had a small window of opportunity to convert to an online model that avoided the emergency label. Working at that time for a traditional research-intensive UK university, I was part of a project to ensure that our materials followed ideas of best practice and scholarship for online delivery using a flipped learning approach. While we think our approach to flipped learning is innovative, we found iteration to be the most helpful design model as we continued to rewrite our course over the following three years. At the end of each summer, we collected student and teacher feedback, ran focus groups, and responded to external examiner reports. Through reflecting on these strands of feedback, we were able to improve our materials. For example, we found that a common concern with collaborative learning, that of social loafing, had real potential to negatively impact group work. To remedy this, one approach was to write into our materials suggestions on role distribution. We also found managing student workload to be essential to a flipped model, and spent considerable time each year streamlining content and ensuring our materials are as engaging as possible. The shift to a new approach to delivering our course was born out of the pandemic, but it has directly translated to course improvements, and we are better able to prioritise active learning principles in class time. However, developing the course involved technological and materials writing expertise, a dedication to iteration in response to feedback, and a small development team working full time. As such, it may only make sense to ‘flip’ classes if there are sufficient resources for such a project.