Innovative technology in blended learning: general English course design and its implementation for university students

Data exchange in the 21st century becomes a crucial engine for all the processes, ideas, trends and breakthroughs in any professional sphere. This fact has two main implications: education as an institution needs revisiting; higher education must change in the most effective way to ensure professional success of the graduates. English as a professional and academic lingua franca should constitute an academic environment even in non-English speaking countries. The paper deals with the issues of blended learning and development of its online component. The objective of the research is to prove the positive influence of blended learning technology on educational outcomes in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes for university students of various CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference) levels in the digital era. The methods used include the literature analysis and the experiment with twenty groups of students having traditional and blended learning classes. The results of the experiment were assessed via 1) IELTS-type test, 2) Moodle statistics, 3) students’ in-class participation, 4) instructors’ feedback, and 5) students’ feedback. The results show that blended learning has improved students’ reading skills, enlarged their vocabulary, enhanced their grammar ability compared with the traditional classes without online management system support, but the most critical issue is that blended learning has optimized classroom practice, reduced teacher’s preparation time, and stimulated students’ efforts.