In light of the 21st century style of teaching and learning, many language educators are struggling with the idea of how to make their instruction meaningful to students in a way that is useful for them yet still addresses the learners’ language needs and the curricular guidelines given to the teacher. No longer can a language teacher simply follow a book and curriculum, lecture, assess, and expect valid language outcomes. However, there are ways to turn the classroom around, “upon its head,” to create an environment in which the students can reach beyond the classroom and incorporate other fields of knowledge, thus allowing the students to connect with other content via language (Ray-Treviño, 2012). One such way to do this is by flipping a classroom.

Just What Is a Flipped Classroom?

The concept is simple: Students’ traditional classroom work becomes their homework, and their homework becomes their classwork (Holloway, 2012). Try wrapping your head around that! In essence, a flipped classroom is one where the students prepare for lessons at home by watching videos, reading content material, researching subject matter, and so forth, then in the classroom perform activities specifically designed by the teacher to enable the students to demonstrate their mastery of the concepts. In the language classroom, this also entails the students providing evidence of mastery of language-centered concepts in the target language. Therefore, a flipped classroom inherently moves from a teacher-centered concept to a student-centered idea as it allows for the students to demonstrate mastery of language skills and content using various modes and topics that interest the students, not ones assigned by the teacher—ones in which the students might not be interested. In the modern world where students have access to information, literally at their fingertips, all too often, we as language teachers and our language curricula are still too prescriptive, stifling the creativeness that arises when a student engages with the target language and content in a way that is meaningful to him or her.

How to Flip a Classroom

Flipping a classroom is no small feat. It requires an entire mind shift for the teacher and absolute buy-in from the students. However, once these two factors are overcome, the work of flipping can begin.

Advantages to Flipping a Classroom

In a nationwide survey of approximately 500 teachers, the concept of flipping the classroom provided the following results:

• 66% reported that students’ standardized test scores increased
• 80% reported that students’ attitudes about learning improved
• 88% reported that their (the teachers’) job satisfaction improved, with 46% reporting that it improved significantly (Classroom Window, 2012)

In addition to statistical evidence, there is practitioner (teacher) and user (student) evidence in that students can access the content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to view and review the material. Furthermore, the content is accessible outside of the classroom, creating a virtual environment, so that concept engagement can occur in the physical classroom with the teacher. Using these ideas allows teachers more time to work one-on-one with the students and to work on problems and issues in class, not gloss over them due to lack of time. In preparation for working with the teacher in class, the students have guided access to expert lectures that the teacher has chosen which offer other insights, perspectives, backgrounds, and interpretation of the content (Wills, 2012).

Challenges to Flipping a Classroom

Initially, more time is required of the teacher to design lessons, especially when considering that not all students will have Internet access, and the teacher’s role changes from being the center to being on the periphery (Jukes, 2013). Additionally, the concepts of how to evaluate student success change as the traditional paper-and-pencil quizzes and tests no longer produce a true picture of what has been achieved by the learner (Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence, 2013). However, ideas related to flipping the classroom are already being used by teachers (e.g., students doing outside research in preparation for a project). But taking the final step to fully commit to this style of teaching can be daunting because the teacher has to surrender some control of how the students learn and focus more on providing access to multiple modes of the same meaningful information from multiple points of view. This ultimately leads to higher order learning and thinking on the part of the students (Bruder, 2010).

Conclusions

When considering flipping a classroom, there are many things that need to be taken into account: time commitment, effect on student performance and satisfaction, effect on teacher performance and satisfaction, and the teacher’s relinquishing control of the classroom to act more as a guide. These are the challenges, but we must remember the advantages, too: more access to the content, more teacher one-on-one time with students, teachers working with students on issues during class time, students accessing various points of view surrounding the content, and so forth.

Flipping a classroom is no easy task, but in my opinion the benefits far outweigh the challenges. Try it; it might just be something that appeals to you. You never know.

Resources

Following are four very helpful resources to further explain the flipped classroom:

http://edtechtimes.com/2012/06/26/sunday-resource-roundup-06-23-12-the-flipped-classroom/

http://emrefirat.edublogs.org/2012/08/03/flippedclass/

http://edudemic.com/2011/12/15-flipped-classrooms/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&gl=US&client=mv-google&feature=player_embedded&v=w_tODZzoaTA&noredirect=1&nomobile=1

References

Bruder, P. (2010). The flipped classroom: Reversing the way we teach. Retrieved from http://www.njea.org/news-and-publications/njea-review/february-2012/the-flipped-classroom-reversing-the-way-we-teach

Classroom Window. (2012). Flipped classrooms: Improved test scores and teacher satisfaction. Retrieved from http://classroomwindow.com/flipped-classrooms-improved-test-scores-and-teacher-satisfaction

Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence. (2013). Flipping the classroom. Retrieved from http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/designing-your-course/flipping-the-classroom.html

Holloway, S.. (2012, September 21). Flipping the higher ed classroom [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.tophat.com/flipping-the-higher-ed-classroom

Jukes, I. (2013). What to consider when flipping the K–12 classroom. 21st-Century Fluency Project. Retrieved from http://fluency21.com/blog/2013/04/05/what-to-consider-when-flipping-the-k-12-classroom/

Ray-Treviño, S. (2012). Changing the focus to 21st century skills: One educator’s experience. The Language Educator, 8(3), 22–23.

Wills, C. (2012). Flipped classroom. Retrieved from http://learn-spark.blogspot.com/2012/09/flipped-classroom.html

Dr. Alan D. Lytle, the teaching director of the Intensive English Language Program at the University of Arkansas–Little Rock, has a background in second and foreign language education (ESL/EFL, German, and French) as well as 25 years of ESL teaching experience at all levels, in academic preparation programs, conversation programs, English for specific purposes programs, and topic-specific programs.