Effectiveness of Anchored Instruction in Online vs. Blended Language Immersion for Public Speaking in Foreign Language Teaching

Anchored instruction, a well-established pedagogical theory, enhances learning outcomes by situating information within real-world contexts and leveraging instructor facilitation. This study conducts a comparative analysis of two instructional modalities—blended and online immersion—in a tertiary-level Public Speaking course, framed within the theoretical construct of anchored instruction. The research involved two homogeneous cohorts (N=66), one group receiving blended learning and the other online immersion. Verbal and nonverbal communication competencies were assessed through video recordings. The results demonstrate that online immersion significantly outperformed blended immersion in both verbal and nonverbal communication skills. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of online immersion in enhancing learner performance and motivation. A combination of t-tests, Pearson correlation, and regression analyses were employed to validate these findings, contributing to the growing body of literature on technology-enhanced language learning.