Innovation in Language Learning

This presentation will show how a teachers' team transformed the course "français des affaires", a compulsory course for the first year students of the Bachelor in Business Management at Artevelde University College (> 1000 students per year), using the school's CRM and the Edumatic-platform.

What started as a transition from a "classical" language classroom course into a blended learning and flipped classroom-based course (2016-2017) in order to address several issues, such as a high level of absenteeism, a low success rate for passing this course (about 30%) and an important degree of heterogeneity when looking at the levels of mastery of French, gradually evolved towards a reflection regarding how technology in general, and blended learning and flipping the classroom in particular, can increase the "added value" of contact hours for students, in order to have them practice the language more, in a more targeted manner.

This paper will focus on how the approach of the course and course materials have been adapted during the 2016-2017 academic year, showing how the teachers' team adapted existing materials, developed new materials and adopted new procedures, through the extensive use of Edumatic. We will also detail the impact of this new teaching paradigm on the students and the teachers, using preliminary quantitative and qualitative results (focus interviews), and will also develop the changes that will be implemented during the 2017-2018 academic year.