Ok, now that everybody has said "what" flaperons are, and "how" they are setup, I'm going to go back to what Minnflyer said above in the second post. Forget you heard about them.

This isn't to say that flaperons can't be used at all, because as DR1 Driver said, there are legitimate uses for them. But for beginners it's not a good idea for them. And here's why. They make the plane more prone to crashing. Why? Well, as Jetmech05 said flaps do produce lift when they are deployed but they also produce drag. Normal flaps are usually located in the inward portion of the wing close to the fuselage of the plane. When the flaps deploy the entire plane slows as  the drag increases, but it does so evenly because the flaps deploy evenly on both sides. Now when you move the flaps out to the wing tips and combine them with ailerons you setup a condition that could be very bad. With the flaps deployed and you move the ailerons you can cause the wingtip to slow to the point that it stalls, but ONLY the wingtip stalls, which causes what is called tip stall. When that wingtip stops flying and stalls it's going to drop. At altitude this isn't an issue because you usually have room to recover. But at just a few feet over the runway you won't have room to recover from the tip stall and will drive the plane into the ground wingtip first. NOT a good situation for a beginner.  

This is why there normally aren't recommended for beginners.

Ken