The transition from online to hybrid instruction has been implemented in recent years in response to vocational institution policy in the higher education context of Indonesia in order to implement student engagement in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. To address this issue, the authors sought to develop vocational English materials that incorporated hybrid instruction into a task-based approach that encourages independent student learning. The authors investigated and analyzed the responses of students learning vocational English to support our teaching and learning quality as a result of the implementation of the hybrid system. With an emphasis on vocational English tasks, it is hoped that this study will make a practical contribution to the teaching practice in Indonesian higher education during the transition from online to hybrid instructions.
TopBackground
In the last two years, higher education institutions have focused on online or distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy changes that loosen learning in higher education can be implemented remotely and face-to-face, and have demanded lecturers adapt to the new learning system. The Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) confirms that the permit for face-to-face learning activities at universities and polytechnics/community academics in the even semester of the 2020/2021 Academic Year can be carried out in a mixed manner (hybrid learning) (Kemdikbud, 2020, December 2). The higher education context is in progress from the third convergence; the strengths are social, technical, and intellectual. It encourages higher education to the tipping point of a significant transformation (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008). Therefore, hybrid teaching needs to be carried out to facilitate the learning needs of students in the transition mode. The merging of online and face-to-face (FTF) instruction has been increasingly used to overcome the challenges associated with the need for a new pedagogy. Therefore, there is a need for a fundamental redesign based on a hybrid system (Lin, 2014). It is expected that hybrid teaching will maintain the continuity of student independent learning in the transition period from full-online to hybrid mode.
A learning atmosphere that demands student independence needs to be carried out during this pandemic. Therefore, lecturers need to seek an approach that maximizes the potential for autonomous learning. To mediate this, the researchers have implemented vocational task-based language teaching (TBLT) in the aviation English course. In this vocational English task-based language teaching, the lecturer makes efforts to maximize vocational learning activities with tasks, combining synchronous and asynchronous learning and the use of technology 2.0 in class. TBLT is a way of teaching languages and a robust area of inquiry that adheres to the concept of tasks related to curriculum design such as materials, teaching, and testing (Jackson O.D., 2022). Most importantly, TBLT epitomizes the notion of a classroom that should be responsive to students' need for using language in the real world. In this perspective, the authors try to connect learning activities with the real world so that interactions for learning with the target language for communicative purposes can be conveyed.
Hence, the authors synchronize hybrid teaching with vocational TBLT to enrich interaction in a higher vocational setting. It indicates the nuance of vocational purpose to sharpen students' educational background to master aviation English. It showcases the link between the need to learn specific skills in terms of vocational English and mediated-task-based language teaching. Hence, this would change the landscape of English activities and it would foster the students' more active coping with teaching material. Constructivist learning approaches can serve as a bridge between practical vocational knowledge and theoretical knowledge in the context of vocational English classes (Storevik, 2015). In line with this, the real-life learning activities in vocational English have to be linked with constructivism as an approach to portraying a miniature classroom of nature.