ABSTRACT
Our traditional educational ecosystem is changing quickly. In the domain of languages, real-world situations like the one created by the Covid-19 pandemic call for an urgent re-adaptation of teaching/learning models at all levels to allow for an increasingly higher remote component and dynamic implementations. Online language learning practices have a unique opportunity to come into their own and become a decisive factor in mainstream education. Therefore, the classroom-based scenario needs to turn to combined flexible methodologies to create a safe and sustainable environment that preserves and potentiates the social contact between teachers and students, when possible, yet is reconfigured seamlessly if necessary. The authors claim that the resulting blended or hybrid language educational model can make the most of the symbiosis between face-to-face and online modalities if specific aspects from the latter are strategically selected and integrated in a substantiated manner. However, hybrid and blended scenarios are often built in a rather ad hoc manner and fail to emerge from a comprehensive theoretical background that captures and formalizes the various perspectives that intervene in the language learning process (e.g., linguistic, psycho-pedagogical, technological, organizational, sociocultural, ethical). This chapter presents a critical analysis of the main theoretical frameworks proposed to date for online language learning as the basis for creating a novel, comprehensive, adaptive framework for hybrid and blended language teaching and learning. Particular focus will be placed on the literature dealing with training teachers to use blended and hybrid methodologies in the context of bilingual education. The chapter ends with the presentation of the AGORA research project, where those mentioned methodological and theoretical considerations are put at the service of foreign language teacher training in rural and deprived areas.
