Blended learning for autonomy development in heterogeneous FLE classes: A lever for developing learners’ transversal competencies?

2.1 Heterogeneity in language classes

Disparities in language proficiency are the most readily identifiable aspect of classroom heterogeneity. Two main categories can be distinguished: inter-individual heterogeneity, which refers to the different CEFR^[1] (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) levels present in the same class (A1 to C2), and intra-individual heterogeneity, which characterizes the different levels of competency that the same learner may possess in the five CEFR language skills: listening comprehension, reading comprehension, writing, speaking and oral interaction.

In addition, other forms of heterogeneity influence FFL learning in the university environment. These include disparities related to the learning environment, such as the diversity of educational contexts and learners’ specific needs (Castellotti & Moore, 2008; Mangiante, 2017), psychological disparities, such as learners’ cognitive differences, personal motivations and emotional diversity (Ryan & Deci, 2000), and learners’ biographies, including their educational and cultural backgrounds, as well as their varied linguistic experiences (Huver, 2015).

Given these multiple dimensions of heterogeneity that characterize FFL university classes, the question arises: how can pedagogical approaches be designed to effectively accommodate such diversity? The following section explores various strategies that have been developed to address these challenges.

2.2 Taking heterogeneity into consideration

The various forms of heterogeneity require special attention from teachers to adapt their teaching methods and meet the needs of all learners.

Indeed, as Larsen-Freeman points out: “each individual [. . .] acts as a unique learning context, bringing a different set of systems to a learning event, responding differently to it, and therefore, learning differently as a result of participating in it” (Larsen-Freeman 2013: 79).

While some authors describe the homogeneous classroom as a “myth“ (Matsuda 2006), for Robbes it’s an “indisputable anthropological observation: heterogeneity between humans is a fact, and this fact constitutes the main justification for differentiated pedagogy” (Robbes 2009: 5).

2.3 Transversal competencies

The notion of competency is defined as “a complex knowledge-action based on the effective mobilization and combination of a variety of internal and external resources within a family of situations“ (Tardif, Fortier & Préfontaine 2006: 22). Competency is characterized by actual application or execution. Thus, it is commonly accepted that it is clearly distinct from mere theoretical knowledge.

In the field of education, the idea of transversal competencies has been around for a long time, aiming to develop fundamental competencies in learners. Historically, university students were required to learn Latin and Greek to develop structured, argumentative thinking (Tardif & Dubois 2013). In recent years, there has been a marked resurgence of interest in transversal competencies, as shown by the bibliometric analysis represented in Figure 1 (Calero López & Rodríguez-López 2020), which evidences a significant rise in related scientific research. This interest is shared on the web, if we refer to the number of results referenced by Google, which have increased exponentially over the last ten years (between 2013 and 2023 as shown in Figure 2. However, specific studies on transversal competencies and language learning are still rare and their development remains difficult to evaluate (Tardif & Dubois 2013).

Figure 1

Frequency of publications on transversal competences 2010–2019 (Calero López & Rodríguez-López 2020).

Figure 2

Evolution of the number of results for the search “compétences transversales” ‘transversal competency’ on Google in French, between 20013 and 2023 (Personal statement of 10 July 2024).

A variety of terms overlap with transversal competencies can be found, such as soft skills, key competencies, transferable skills, cross-functional skills, 21st-century skills, or global competencies. However, they share the same fundamental essence, but vary slightly in terms of objectives and intentions, which is why we will speak of transversal competencies as more comprehensive and academic (Starck & Boancă 2019).

A review of certain conceptualizations of transversal competencies reveals two main characteristics (ibid), they are non-technical: not linked to a specific task or professional context. They encompass general abilities that can be applied in a variety of contexts, facilitating individual adaptability. And they are non-disciplinary: built against a disciplinary logic, in line with a presumed informal and/or non-formal acquisition. This means they transcend the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines, promoting holistic learning.

According to ESCO (European Skills, Competences and Occupations: a body of the European Commission) they are “the cornerstone for the personal development of a person”^[2].

These transversal competencies are often highlighted for their importance in the professional integration and employability of students. One example is the European transval.eu project, which aims to make transversal competencies explicit in validation and orientation processes. With this in mind, a number of universities have proposed university repositories of transversal competencies such as the Université de Montréal’s Référentiel des compétences transversales favorisant l’intégration professionnelle des étudiants aux cycles supérieurs^[3], or the University of Ottawa’s uOcompetencies^[4].

These six transversal competencies—curiosity, collaboration, communication, creativity, confidence, and digital literacy—were chosen for their critical role in fostering adaptability and success in higher educational learning contexts (Sá & Serpa 2018). Their selection is grounded in established competency frameworks such as the Université de Montréal’s Référentiel des compétences transversales and the University of Ottawa’s uOcompetencies, which emphasize their importance for higher education and professional integration.

These competencies are closely aligned with the employed pedagogical approaches—including project-based learning, differentiated teaching, and autonomy development—all of which inherently require active engagement with these competencies.

The detailed definitions of the six transversal competencies (curiosity, collaboration, communication, creativity, confidence, and digital literacy) used in this study are provided in Appendix 1. The development of autonomy is not covered here, as it has already been dealt with in another article (Pouzergues & Cappellini 2022). We will rely on these definitions when analyzing the content of the data and selecting coding categories.

Building on these theoretical foundations, the following section presents the blended learning system designed to address our research question: how do learners perceive and experience the efficacy of the learning system in fostering transversal competencies?

4.1 Data type

Data collection for our study draws on several sources to ensure cross-validation of information. Following Maren’s (2003), methodological framework, the research employs three interconnected types of data that together provide a comprehensive understanding of learner experiences. The first category, invoked data, corresponds to the traces of activities carried out within the blended learning system. These naturally occurring traces include messages recorded in the logbook, recordings of advisory interviews, and learners’ productions, enabling analysis of participants’ behavior and interactions in spontaneous contexts. Induced data takes the form of questionnaires administered at the beginning and end of the course. These questionnaires are designed to gather specific information on learners’ perceptions, attitudes and knowledge before and after the teaching intervention. This method makes it possible to measure learner progress and evaluate the impact of the hybrid system. Data elicited come from “individual comprehension interviews“ (Kaufmann 2016) conducted by teacher-researchers from outside the system. The aim of these interviews is to gather in-depth insights into learners’ experiences, allowing them to express their thoughts, feelings and reflections in detail. The fact that these interviews are conducted by outsiders adds a dimension of objectivity and neutrality to the analysis.

By combining these three types of data, we gain a holistic view of how learners perceive the development of their transversal competencies within the system.

4.2 The corpus

As previously indicated, our action-research (AR) was carried out in three distinct stages, involving three multi-level classes with numbers ranging from 6 to 13 learners (see Appendix 2 1 for a detailed description of the participants and course specifications).

The first stage of action research (now AR1) lasting a total of 30 hours of classes spread over 10 weeks took place in the second semester of the 2020–2021 academic year, with a group of 6 PhD students with levels ranging from A0 to B2. The second stage of action research (now AR2) took place in the first semester of the 2021–2022 academic year, for 40 hours over 7 weeks. This training was offered to a group of 13 learners of Malaysian origin from an exchange program within the Mechanical and Production Engineering department of the Aix-Marseille IUT. Levels for this group ranged from A2 to C1.The third stage (now AR3) took place in the second half of 2021–2022, with a group of 13 learners from a wide variety of backgrounds. As with the first stage, this phase involved 30 hours of training spread over 10 weeks.

The data collected during these three stages form the corpus of our study. It includes questionnaires that were administered during the last class of each course to assess learners’ perceptions (32 questionnaires). Individual advice interviews conducted by videoconference at the beginning and middle of the course were recorded (32 interviews, i.e. 16 hours of recording). Logbook messages were written by learners throughout their training in forums on the university platform (132 messages) with the prompt provided in Appendix 3. Finally, comprehension interviews, as theorised by Kaufmann (2016), constitute a qualitative method aimed at gathering in-depth information while adopting an open, non-directive research posture. The interviews were conducted in French, English, Spanish or Portuguese (depending on the participants’ levels and languages of origin) by external interviewers who were not involved in the teaching, using an interview guide (see Appendix 3). A total of 26 comprehension interviews, covering all students from AR2 and AR3 (n = 26) and representing approximately 13 hours of recording time, were conducted^[6].

These varied data help us to provide a solid basis for analyzing the impact of the system on the development of learners’ cross-disciplinary skills in a heterogeneous context.

4.3 Analysis

The analysis adopts an explanatory sequential mixed methods design (Fetters, Curry & Creswell 2013), combining quantitative and qualitative techniques to offer a comprehensive understanding of the data. We first conducted quantitative analysis, followed by qualitative inquiry to explain and contextualize the quantitative findings. The qualitative analysis is based on a content analysis (Bardin 2013) structured around 6 main thematic categories (Paillé & Mucchielli 2016) described in Appendix 1.

To ensure trustworthiness of the qualitative data, we employed several strategies: we developed a detailed annotation guide (see Appendix 1) to standardize the coding process; we utilized ELAN annotation software (Brugman & Russel 2004) for audio-visual data and Excel software for nominal data, enhancing the systematic organization and analysis of our data; to guarantee the reliability of our coding, we applied double-blind coding (Tellier 2014) on 20 % of the corpus, first coding 10 % of the data, followed by a second coding on another 10 % sample after necessary adjustment as illustrated in Figure 5. The analytic and coding procedures were undertaken by research collaborators external to teaching activities to safeguard the integrity and impartiality of the findings.

Figure 5

Double blind coding stages

This method minimizes potential bias and ensures consistency in the application of thematic categories across the dataset.

This methodological framework enabled us to gather comprehensive data on learners’ perceptions and experiences of transversal competencies development within our blended learning system. The following section presents the findings that emerged from this multi-faceted analysis, organized according to the six transversal competencies identified in our theoretical framework.

5.1 Curiosity

As the project progresses, learners progressively opted for a wider variety of learning resources and strategies, in particular to help them carry out the project tasks, which for most of them are a source of curiosity. For Pedro-B2^[7], it’s an opportunity to learn more about their field of study, as he notes in his logbook: “There’s also the project to make a video in relation to Mechanical and Productive Engineering. In this project, there are many more opportunities to learn about our subject.”

Moreover, by way of example, the video project enabled Emma-B2 in RA2 to discover that she wished to continue her studies in production engineering at the Lyon Engineering School, as he explains in his comprehension interview:

I learned a lot by making the video, not only about French but also about my future. [Why?] As I did the process in the workshop the welding the bending, to record the video, I found it very interesting for me to do things like that, and I think in the future I’d like to continue my studies in production engineering at the engineering school and I looked, thanks to that, I looked for engineering schools and I found that maybe if it’s possible I’d like to continue at the Lyon engineering school.

Noah-A1 highlights the link between this category, the curiosity of founding new vocabulary, and collaboration (category 2) and communication (category 3): “the fact of making a project between all of us makes more effort, you have to look for words or try to communicate“.

Another important source of curiosity detected within the system is observing the habits of their peers, as illustrated by the following logbook messages. Ming-B1: “The class logbook has been very useful for discovering new ways of learning and sharing them with my friends.”; Asha-A2: “The logbook allowed us to exchange information on ways of learning, as well as being a means of practicing our writing””.

This quest for new forms of learning reflects an open-mindedness and a thirst for learning inherent in curiosity as expressed by Ayo-A2. “From our learning, we have to take a step back to look for YouTube channels to learn something that I needed and didn’t know, and that I had to look for resources online to look for different things to so kind of stimulate curiosity.”

Furthermore, 24 of the 26 learners felt that the system had developed their curiosity, with a total score of 4.1/5; this numerical statistic reinforces our qualitative analysis.

5.2 Collaboration

Teamwork is essential to both differentiated teaching and project-based teaching, two approaches that are intrinsic to our learning system.

Gradually, learners in multi-level classes enrich their learning by drawing on the knowledge of higher proficiency peers and sharing it with peers at lower levels of proficiency, as witnessed by Ayo-A2 “I saw that there were people much more advanced than me and I learnt from that in a way. And I also think that if you’re not that advanced, or if you’re already advanced, the fact that you’re teaching is also a way of learning, you learn even more.”

However, working together is not always easy at first, as was the case for Mei-C1, for whom this was not something he was used to, but it enabled him to learn to be “more patient“ and “to explain“.

Mei-C1 “I think I’m going a bit too fast, but the work [referring to collaborative group work] allows me to be more patient... yes, because you have to explain and I haven’t done that much before, so it’s also a lot of practice, so yes, it’s good”.

For Ben-A2, although sometimes “very difficult”, working together on the project was an experience that she nevertheless enjoyed because it encouraged her to communicate (category 3): “it’s always complicated to work in a group, but I didn’t find it very difficult at times, but I enjoyed it [...] working together on a project makes it harder, we need to find the correct words, try to communicate.”

Luna-B2 also found it a “very good exercise” in her ECN3: “And also the poster is very good because when you work with another person the ideas are totally different but that’s good because you have to discuss [...] And then you have to find an intermediate point between the two ideas of the other person with you and that I think it’s a very good exercise.”

Finally, some consider the development of this transversal competency to be useful “in the future” or in “their career path”, as the following testimonials show:

Arjun-B1: “Personally, I really appreciate the projects and group work that we’ve done throughout our course together. In my opinion, it allows me to benefit from the application of the qualities of work so that I can apply it in my professional career.”; Anna-C1: “For me, I like the project-based activities because they allow us to learn a lot of new things. When we were doing these activities, we used different learning methods that were very interesting, and I think we’ll use them in the future.”

In addition, despite the heterogeneities present, all the learners were able to carry out the project tasks requested, using digital tools (category 6) and demonstrating creativity (category 5).

In terms of quantitative data, 23 of the 26 learners felt that the system had enabled them to develop their ability to collaborate. The total score for this transversal competency is 3.85/5.

5.3 Communication

The various elements of the course lead learners to develop their communication skills in the broadest sense: they must express themselves in front of the class with presentation aids, make videos, write posters and then explain them orally, write messages in the logbook, among other tasks. All these activities provide opportunities to develop their written and oral communication skills. For Luna-ECL-B2 4:20 for example, it enables her to learn to describe herself and her research work “I really like the projects [...] it’s very good because for me it was very complicated to describe myself, with this exercise ... I think [...] I have more fluidity when I talk about myself on my thesis on the things I do before, and so I like it a lot.”

The co-occurrences of this category with categories 1 and 2 show that communicative competence is closely linked to collaboration and confidence, particularly when it comes to speaking, as indicated by student Anna-C1, who believes that by the end of the course she is able to speak in front of many people: “Once in the wile we have to do presentation in front of others and sometimes for me, in the first place I’m very nervous, I was very nervous but as time goes by, and I believe I have improve my French a little, I become more confident and I can speak in front of many people”.

Jian-B1 also appreciates being able to speak in front of an audience, and admits to being less shy: “I particularly like video pitch because I... because I used to practice speaking in front of an audience”.

As in category 1, 24 of the 26 learners felt that the system had improved their communication skills, with a total score of 3.9/5 – a result which supports the findings of our qualitative analysis.

5.4 Confidence

The development of confidence is approached from several angles. The first, mentioned in category 3, is to put learners in front of an audience in an oral production situation during project-related activities, as illustrated by these examples:

Jian -B1: “Through this class I overcome my fear to talk in front of the people because we do the shooting together.”

Jian-B1 “I particularly like video pitch because I... because I used to practice speaking in front of the audience, so I think ... I’m less shy now.”

Mateo-A2 “these activities [project-task] help us a lot to be more confident and make us think before speaking to have a structured speech.”

For Ayo-A2, this was even the most interesting part of the course, as it enabled her to gain confidence in speaking:

The best part of the course was creating the video. [...]I’ve become much more confident when speaking, because when I first came here in the first month, I was afraid of saying something wrong. [...] I think during the course I became much more confident when I spoke, when I asked for something, when I asked for information, when I said something, even if it was wrong, I really relaxed, but during the first week, I think I didn’t say anything because I was afraid of making mistakes.

Another entry discusses the differences in proficiency levels that can help the development of confidence:

Lucas-A2 : “Interacting with people of a higher level gives me extra confidence to say that if I say something and the person who is starting understands me, but also the person who is already advanced understands me and I understand them both equally, it gives me the feeling that I can communicate in an environment that is not simulated, say, what it would be in everyday life.”

A less predictable entry is a comparison linked to the learner’s “culture” as shown by the testimony of Amara-B2. A barrier linked to her imperfect level which, as well as making her “feel guilty and frustrated,” would prevent her from communicating because she feels that her level is not sufficient to be able to communicate freely. But seeing peers at a lower level without this cultural barrier allows her “to get rid of it”, to find the courage to speak, or at least “to try“, despite the imperfection of her oral production skills:

I’m very afraid to speak French ‘parce que je pense que je ne peux pas parler très bien alors je ne veux pas parler’ [because I don’t think I can speak very well, so I don’t want to speak] because in my culture if you do it very terribly it’s not very good thing [...] After 2 years [in France] my French level is very terrible its makes me feel guilty and frustrated to some degrees I just try to get rid of it [...]this class there is some people speaking very good French and some who are just starting like [Ben] A1-A2 and I’m very surprise because people no matter their level they are very happy to express them self in French either the simplest their words for example bonjour and they are super happy [..] so you can still speak French even if you make a lot of mistakes [...] so in my daily life I try to speak French more and more because of this different niveau in the class I get some courage to face the fact that I’m not speaking quite well but I will still try”

Learners gave a positive self-assessment of 4.0/5 for the development of their confidence. There are many comments along these lines, such as Pedro-B2 : “I feel that my level of speaking is better than before and I feel more confident every time I speak”. Only one learner out of 26 felt that the scheme had not enabled them to develop this transversal competency.

Another point worth emphasizing is that some learners said they would like to reinvest in developing this skill, as Mary-C1 indicates the video project (which he called “pitch-talk”) was very useful because it enabled him to take part in a 3-minute competition [certainly referring to the “my thesis in 180 seconds” competition] “in a fluent and organised way”, something he would not have “really dared” to do before this experience:

The Pitch Talk part, talking about myself, what I’ve already done, what I’m doing and the summary is very, very useful because I know that one day I’m going to take part in competitions and the 3-minute Pitch Talk. It is something I didn’t really dare to do before, but now I’ve got the experience, and I can really do it in a fluid and organised way.

5.5 Creativity

Although creativity is the transverse competency with the lowest score (3.65/5) and 4 out of 26 learners answered negatively (below 3), we can observe that, for some learners, the system, particularly through the projects, enabled them to discover their competency as shown by Sofia-B1 “Before this I was never interested to make video like this, because I’m not a very creative person. And when I made this video, it made me think a lot on how to be more creative, and work with other people”.

For others, it has helped them to develop their creativity through the use of a variety of media, as in the case of Ayo-A2: “I think this course has helped me to develop my creativity. Um, I think it encourages us to be more creative, at the best part of the course, when it comes to creating videos, we’ve used the different tools available, video, music, drawings, emojis.”

Furthermore, for Luna-B2, who describes herself as a “creative” person, the scheme enabled her to stimulate her creativity: “I love doing things that involve stimulating creativity, so I really enjoyed editing the video”. A creativity that is also reflected in the quality of her final productions, winner of the “Coup de Coeur” prize in the pitch-video competition^[8]. In the three action-research projects, most learners produced work that went beyond their expectations and those of their teacher.

5.6 Digital literacy

As we have shown in the description of the system (see section 3), its operation relies heavily on numerous digital tools (video editing, shared documents, videoconferencing, Moodle platform, etc.) and networks (websites dedicated to learning French, social networks, etc.). Although most learners are already familiar with most of these tools, notably in their personal lives, they feel that they have developed their digital literacy through this system. In fact, in the end-of-course questionnaire in AR2 and AR3, only 2 out of 26 learners replied negatively to the question: “Do you think this course has enabled you to develop your digital skills.” (see Figure 7).

The specific competencies developed vary greatly from one learner to another, but we can see that making and editing videos is one of the areas where they feel they have improved the most; Amara-B2 remarks that “I learned how to make a video through this class ... I never used this tool before.”

Figure 7

Self-assessment of learners’ progress in developing digital literacy Responses to question: Do you think this course has enabled you to develop your digital literacy? Two answers are possible: yes/no.

The use of digital tools proves to be both an enjoyable and rewarding form of learning. When combined with collaboration (Category 2), it enables learners to master “editing tools and software”, as shown by Eva-C1:

I really like the opportunity to create the GMP training video with my mates. It allows me to express my ideas in a new environment, in a new language. It’s quite interesting to see the collaboration between us when we try to produce the script, we had a lot of fun, but at the end of the work, we had a lot of experience with editing tools and software.

For others, the competence enhancement is to be able to collect information in another language (French) about the region where the course takes place (in Aix-en-Provence) or in another country, such as for Mei-C1: “the project (interactive map) enables me to learn how to gather information”.

Another remarkable improvement is the increasing use of shared documents. Although these tools were imposed in the first sessions, we can see that the learners, who for the most part did not use them previously, are now adopting this type of document autonomously to carry out numerous tasks (writing their video scripts, drafting the poster, etc.).

This testimonial from Anna-C1, an advanced student, illustrates the benefits of using shared documents for group work:

For example, with [teacher name] we used many shared documents, and we can, all of us, all the members of the group, can do the works at the same time. In Malaysia we didn’t use it so it’s very new to me, and it’s very interesting as we can also correct the mistakes that the others makes so it’s very interesting, and we can exchange easily.

While the preceding analysis examines each transversal competency individually, the findings reveal complex interconnections between competencies that warrant further examination. The following discussion explores these interactions and their implications for addressing our research question.

Appendix 1: Annotation guide

Appendix 2: Description of participants and course duration

In order to preserve the anonymity of our learners, we assigned pseudonyms to each participant.

Legend:

LC = Listening Comprehension

RC = Reading Comprehension

OP = Oral Production

WP = Written Production

GL = General Level

Appendix 3: Comprehension interview guide

1. Heterogeneous class:

You were in a multi-level class. Was this a problem for you?

Was it an advantage or a disadvantage?

In your opinion, was the course adapted to a multi-level class?

Do you feel you made progress? If so, in which competencies?

Did the course meet your specific needs?

2. The course:

a. General assessment:

Was this a regular course for you?

What was new?

What did you particularly like or dislike?

b. The tools:

What did you think of:

– the logbook

– learning to learn sessions

– advice interviews

Were they useful for you?

What did they bring you?

c. Projects:

– The video pitch

– The collaborative interactive map

Did they help you make progress? open the discussion

d. Collaborative work:

It seems to me that you have often worked in groups, in pairs or threes.

What do you think of this?

Was it useful for you?

Do you think it helped you to develop your oral production and comprehension?

Did you enjoy working with all your classmates? Yes/No

Why or why not?

3. Transversal competencies

Do you think this course has helped you to develop your digital competencies? Yes/No

If yes, which ones? Which tools?

More generally, do you think this course has helped you to develop soft skills such as:

– Creativity

– Confidence

– Collaboration

– Curiosity

– Communication skills

If so, why or how? Please give examples.

Appendix 4: Example of the first logbook message

Traduction :

Hello everyone,

As we discussed in class, I am offering this sharing space to help you develop your learning autonomy.

In your messages, I would like to see your resources (e.g., websites, podcasts, books, apps, games, etc.), the strategies you implement (e.g., listening to the radio in the morning, learning 5 words a day, reading the news in French, talking with French people in the street, etc.), the goals you set for yourself (e.g., passing the B2 exam, being able to share your ideas effectively, developing vocabulary related to your professional field, etc.), the more personal challenges you might face (e.g., shyness, discouragement, discomfort, etc.), and how you evaluate what you have implemented (e.g., “I tried this or that technique but it didn’t work,” or conversely, “It helped me a lot; since I started using this site, I’ve been learning a lot,” etc.).

Thank you in advance for your participation and don’t hesitate to respond to your classmates’ messages.

Looking forward to reading you!