The present research evaluates the impact of a blended remote learning intervention on the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) attainment of 8-12-year-old children living in rural parts of Greece who, contrary to their urban counterparts, have no access to English language instruction in their schools. Rooted in a sociocultural understanding of development and the idea that subject matter and academic learning cannot be separated from activities such as social identification, co-construction of understanding and identity development, the present intervention was fundamentally centred around three key concepts: collaborative enquiry, authenticity, and self-paced mastery. Drawing on findings from the quantitative strand of an embedded mixed methods intervention design, the study reveals positive benefits from participation in the blended distance learning intervention with respect to children's vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well as their aural comprehension skills. Moreover, findings indicate that, in the case of small multigrade schools in Greece, a blended distance learning approach is likely to be effective at raising EFL attainment at a comparable cost level to that of faceto-face programmes. The study thereby contributes to an emerging body of international research on pedagogically and financially viable implementations of blended distance learning involving primary learners in resource-poor settings.

Keywords AbstractEnglish as a foreign language (EFL); Greece; rural schools; self-organised learning environments (SOLE).Despite increasing demands in the labour market for higher-order thinking skills, along with OECD reports highlighting an urgent need for a curriculum reform in the crisis-ridden country that will aim to adopt a more holistic approach to the education and development of its young people, Greece is still ranking among the lowest across 30 OECD countries in terms of performance on 21st century competencies, such as creativity, while also performing well below average on foundational literacies such as scientific and cultural and civic literacy. It should be hardly surprising that the structural constraints imposed by a debt-ridden economy seem to weigh heavily on the administrators, who, recognising the need for the nation to play catch-up, are currently amidst a curricular reform for a number of secondary school subjects, yet inevitably pushing over 500 of the most marginalised primary schools operating in rural and socioeconomically challenged parts of the country down the list of priorities. It is against this very backdrop, then, that questions such as "How can we do more with less?" have greater currency than ever. This ongoing scholarship investigates the design of a targeted intervention aiming to provide support for the more disadvantaged state schools where there is currently no provision for the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) due to geographical and budgetary constraints. 'Self-organised learning' as an alternative, cost-effective model for the enactment of the primary English curriculum to current approaches has been put to the test. Pupils from eight such schools participated in a quasiexperiment consisting of weekly sessions where they were encouraged to self-organise, take responsibility for the direction of their own learning, demonstrate initiative, and collaborate effectively. Preliminary findings are discussed in terms of behavioural changes regarding the abovementioned skills, including the participants' preparedness to self-direct.