| Summary: | Abstract
Flipped learning has received a lot of attention in educational literature and is becoming more prominent in higher education in subject-specialist areas. It is a technology-based pedagogy that essentially shifts the ‘understand’ and ‘remember’ phases of Bloom’s learning taxonomy out of the classroom and into the personal space to be completed before the classroom lesson. This allows for the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy to then be negotiated in class. The purpose of this research was to find out whether such pedagogy would offer value to the EAP practitioner whose teaching focus is on developing academic skills and language in students. Following a reflective case study approach, two groups of students on a university foundation programme were given regular flipped learning instruction in their EAP classes. By triangulating the findings of both teacher observations (journals and discussions) and student perceptions (Internet survey and focus group), claims of high student engagement, heightened preparedness for learning in the classroom and increased class time for practice and application were all found to have merit. Furthermore, key concepts commonly associated with EAP, such as critical thinking and learner autonomy, were also evident. Most importantly, however, was the fact that students genuinely noticed improvements in their academic competence and, despite its burden on personal time and workload, overwhelmingly supported it. With a clear gap in the literature regarding flipped learning pedagogy in an EAP context, it is hoped that this research will spark further discussion and motivate others to research what could be a potentially very powerful and productive partnership.
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