Digital literacies are an increasingly important part of language teachers’ repertoire. We are lucky to have two experts in this area on today’s episode of the Teachers Talk Tech podcast. Gavin Dudeney (Consultants-e) and Jasmin Silver (Cambridge University Press & Assessment) discuss what digital literacies are, how they have changed in recent years, and how you can incorporate them into the language curriculum.
Teachers Talk Tech is a podcast series about the role of technology in language learning and teaching. In conversations with leading experts from the around the world, along with members of Cambridge Language Research Team, we discuss the latest developments in the field and offer suggestions for teachers on how best to use technology to support learning inside and outside the classroom.
The importance of digital literacies
Digital literacies, or the ability to consume and produce digital information for the purposes of learning, teaching, or simply using a language, has received a significant amount of attention over the years. More recently, this has expanded to include critical literacies, or the ability to discern the trustworthiness of online sources, for example. It also includes our ability to monitor and regulate our own use of digital information to avoid information overload or digital distraction (also referred to as ‘attentional literacy’).
In this episode we discuss ways in which you can help your learners develop digital and critical literacies. This could be through activities such as fact checking and referencing. We want to encourage students to consult multiple reliable sources and cross-reference what they find before using it.
Furthermore, we can teach them what to look for in an online source, and how to ask the right questions. A key point to come out of the conversation is the importance of integrating digital literacies in a ‘little and often’ manner. This helps to build good habits by creating activities which have both a language aim and a digital literacy aim, and melds them together into a coherent whole. This applies to us teachers, too. Working together with colleagues and learning how to implement digital literacies across the curriculum is best seen as a collaborative effort, in which teachers can support each other.
Listen to this episode and don’t forget to subscribe to the series wherever you get your podcasts from (e.g. Spotify or iTunes)!
After listening
Once you have listened to the podcast, the following reflective questions can act as prompts to consider how to further improve your digital literacies.
- How would you assess your own level of digital literacy? How could you improve it?
- How could you introduce some elements of digital literacy into your classes?
- How could you use your students’ experience to help you develop your (and their) digital literacy?
To learn more
Below are a number of excellent resources, where you can learn more about the topics discussed in this episode.
- Pegrum, M., Hockly, N., & Dudeney, G. (2022) Digital Literacies (second edition). Routledge.
- Digital Literacies https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/digital-literacies
- What is the Value of teaching Digital Literacy? https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2021/10/29/value-teaching-digital-literacy/
- Learning2Gether https://learning2gether.net/
- Digital Literacy framework https://issuu.com/cambridgeupelt/docs/clc_digital_literacy_issuu
- Cambridge Life Competencies Framework www.cambridge.org/clcf
Further episodes
As well as this episode, the following topics are available and we encourage you to subscribe to the series wherever you get your podcasts from (e.g. Spotify or iTunes), so you can keep up to date.
- Motivating language learners with technology with Marta González-Lloret & Delia Kidd
- Digital wellbeing in language learning and teaching with Aga Palalas & Jasmin Silver
- Using augmented and virtual reality in language teaching with Mark Pegrum & Andrea Vinkler
And look out for the following episode coming soon:
- Digital skills: what’s next for language teachers? With Nicky Hockly & Delia Kidd
Catch up on our previous episode of Teachers Talk Tech on Using augmented and virtual reality in language teaching.