Teaching - at its best - is not simply a process of providing learners with information, but a means to lead learners on a journey of self-improvement and empowerment and to instill in them the confidence, ability and desire to become life-long learners. At the core of this process is ensuring access and inclusion to learning, allowing for multiple learner paths continuously engaging with learners. These issues are at the heart of Area 5.
Please consider where you stand in view of the following long-term goals.
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Your answer: I do not arrange digital assignments for language teaching purposes
While it can be challenging to support digital assignments if you are not familiar with them, there are many benefits to using digital assignments for language teaching purposes.
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Digital assignments are a useful way to enable self-directed learning. At first, students may be restrained in using digital technologies, but they will soon become more confident with these. This will greatly benefit the learning process for them. If the first step is done, namely to motivate learners in a positive way, they will begin to use these tools in a natural way, even without being asked explicitly. |
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Consider asking learners to search online for information relevant to the current topic of your language lessons and to present their findings in a digital format. The actual assignment you give them requires only low-level digital skills, like presenting a website they found concerning the topic, but it could also be a short account prepared with some presentation software. Ask learners about the problems they had with this task and adjust the rules (e.g. format of presentation an idea or concept) to allow learners of all levels to participate in digital assignments. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Explore the area of assessing learners’ digital skills and try to think about some tasks you could offer in a digital format that can be accomplished by all learners. |
Your answer: My learners do not have problems with using digital technology for language learning purposes.
Your learners seem to have good access to digital technologies. However, even these learners will sometimes struggle with technical or operational issues as problems that lie beyond the users’ influence, such as poor internet connections, old appliances, etc. can occur.
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The more complex the tasks you set and the more varied the environments you use; the more likely students are to encounter technical problems. Addressing this issue by estimating and providing guidelines for learners will help to avoid this scenario. This is essential for ensuring that all learners feel included and that they can participate. |
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A language teacher using digital tools should be aware of possible technical problems that can occur and know how to handle these. Before introducing new technical approaches, it is important to address basic requirements, and consider providing an opportunity for learners to discuss and/ or receive feedback on these. You could also look to create digital resources such as screen recordings or comprehensive PDF guidelines to support learners in their use of a digital tool. Many digital tools will already provide training and/ or guidelines, which you could show to learners, so they can access these themselves. Some students may also have poor internet accessibility or old technical equipment, so consider possible strategies to include them in the digital learning process. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Openly discuss practical or technical difficulties with learners and seek to solve them collectively. |
Your answer: I customize the computer-assisted tasks for language learning so as to minimize difficulties.
It is excellent that you are aware of the difficulties learners can face using digital technologies, and that you adjust your activities accordingly. An open exchange of views with your learners, however, can be helpful for better understanding what digital tools and tasks you can safely apply with your learners.
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Exploring new digitals tools and encouraging learners to try more sophisticated digital tasks can be useful to detect your learners’ limits. Constant feedback from your students as a result of this will allow you to be more aware of their digital competences, so you will be able to improve linguistic knowledge alongside technology skills and offer more customized assignments that can easily be adapted to individual circumstances. |
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Evaluate the digital skills of your learners and which further obstacles they may be facing with a view to your intended teaching and learning plans. Based on this evaluation, try to differentiate the assignments you offer according to the learners’ ability and their technological equipment. If you wish to offer more advanced digital tasks or assignments, encourage your more digitally-skilled learners to act as mediators and help their peers. Ask your learners about their experiences and problems and adapt the task if needed. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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With each newly introduced digital activity, openly discuss practical or technical difficulties with learners and/ or look to encourage more digitally- skilled learners to act as mediators. |
Your answer: I discuss possible obstacles and challenges of using technology with learners and outline solutions.
Learners’ feedback is a useful tool for guiding adjustments in your teaching approaches.
Always be open to suggestions and ideas from your students as they can greatly contribute in outlining new solutions for digital problems and mediate their knowledge to peers. This can be a great support in overcoming common obstacles.
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Discussing possible solutions to digital problems with your students allows you to better evaluate their technical resources and their digital competences. Furthermore, learners can provide new ideas and even help you to expand your own knowledge of technology. |
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Consider to what extent the solutions outlined by you are possibly restrictive for your learners. Discuss further solutions for possible difficulties with your students. Even at this stage, keep on asking for feedback and offering help, as the assignments may be proceeding to a higher level and many more obstacles might occur. See how you can introduce new formats and activities or support more diversity in language classes while also ensuring nobody is being left behind. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Allow for variety and expand your digital strategies as appropriate. |
Your answer: I allow for variety, e.g. I customize the language learning activities to the learners’ needs and interests, discuss solutions for barriers which might occur and provide alternative ways for completing the task.
You involve learners in developing an overall digital learning approach that will leave nobody behind. At the same time, you allow the majority of learners to benefit from a greater range of digital activities and suggest a variety of possibilities to choose from in order to complete certain assignments.
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Ensuring that all your students have access to the same learning opportunities will allow you to provide equal learning development in your language lessons. In addition, by ensuring that learners have a wide range of digital resources at their disposal, they can more easily develop technology skills according to their individual needs. |
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It is important to ensure that, in the long run, all learners will have the same learning opportunities. If some learners are systematically disadvantaged, it is important to act to allow them to benefit from the same learning opportunities where possible. In addition to this, you could look at allowing learners to move to a more self-determined learning approach, allowing learners to create their own materials to support the language learning process. This way, you offer everyone the chance to find an appropriate way to solve problems, which suits their personal learning capacity and the technological equipment at hand. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Systematically support disadvantaged learners and monitor their progression. Encourage more innovation and individual strategies. |
Your answer: All learners are required to do the same language activities, irrespective of their competence level.
Although all learners are required to do the same activities, you should consider which learners may need additional support and which may need to be challenged. You should be aware that internal differentiation in language classes is indispensable to offer up-to-date teaching and to enable equal learning success.
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By adjusting activities for learners’ individual improvement levels, you will be able to proceed without leaving anyone behind. Combining different learning and teaching strategies and implementing a variety of different learning activities can result in more effective and deeper learning for all students. |
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With digital tools, you can provide additional material to specific students who need further support. By providing easy to use formats when you assign tasks and sending these via familiar and accessible means, you can support this process. Be aware however that not all students will be able to work with these programs without introduction, so it is important that you identify who is able to work with these formats, and train them before you start. Keep it easy, do not discourage your students from the outset, but support them by setting low-level targets and refer mainly to those with the least developed digital experience. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Offer further digital learning language resources to learners who need additional support. |
Your answer: I do provide learners with recommendations for additional digital language learning resources.
You know and understand the benefits of learning resources but could also apply them in your own development of teaching materials by creating your own individualized online materials and integrating them in your classes.
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Integrating digital tools in your teaching materials can be extremely helpful if you want to render the learning process more engaging. You can rely on these digital tools to support specific needs and to allow for the development of individual linguistic empowerment by actively involving students in online activities, such as cooperative projects. |
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You could apply your knowledge of digital resources to your own teaching according to the topic you are currently teaching in your class, and as a means to address different learning needs and preferences. Encourage students to present pictures or videos online or via a messenger service for students who prefer more visually oriented learners and audio for more audibly oriented students. You could also assign talks on commonly used software, where students could work in collaborative projects. For this purpose, more digitally skilled learners could act as mediators and show how to use the program to the others. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Address different learning needs and preferences when teaching. |
Your answer: I provide optional digital activities for enhancement of specific language skills for those learners who are advanced or lagging behind.
You know which learners need additional support and which kinds of activities can help them.
What could improve your work in this area would be to apply this knowledge to your own teaching and to address different learning needs and preferences in the way you present information.
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By differentiating linguistic input being used, you can meet the needs of all students, without leaving anyone behind. This can also introduce elements of cooperative learning, which can enhance individual skills while promoting teamwork. |
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Vary the format of activities and the examples used to illustrate course content in order to address the different experiences your learners bring. Promote team projects, where more advanced students can use their knowledge to help less digitally skilled learners via cooperative learning approaches. This can improve both digital and linguistic skills and can allow learners to work synchronously via online platforms that offer simultaneous input. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Embed personalisation in your teaching and empower students to create more individual digital learning material. |
Your answer: Whenever possible, I apply digital technologies in my language classes to meet (special) learning needs and preferences.
You know how to address different learning needs and preferences to make the learning process easier for all learners. It is important however to consider learners' professional and personal background from a holistic viewpoint and to identify the challenges each learner faces and the experiences they bring
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Promoting personal contribution in the language learning process can be both refreshing and helpful for the individual and for the class as a learner group. By adjusting digital linguistic inputs to students’ preferences and needs, you can reach learning aims more effectively. |
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Express a desire for your students’ experiences and try to relate your teaching to their different experiences and pre-conceptions, by illustrating concepts with examples that are meaningful to them. Consider their practical and time constraints and try to allow for these in the assignments you set them. In group work, encourage students to exchange knowledge and experiences, so that both technical and linguistic issues can be addressed and discussed among peers. Address learners’ creativity by encouraging them to produce their own audio and/or video material. Adapt assignments to try and support learners’ technical skills and preconditions if possible. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Address learners' (life) experiences and constraints. |
Your answer: I systematically reflect on and adapt my language teaching methods to link to learners' individual (special) learning needs, preferences and interests.
Personalised learning is important, but clarity on course content and standards is equally important. Your learners should be able to perform well in standardised digital assessments and prescribed assignments, whether or not these are in a format and style they appreciate.
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With a wider range of activities and a vast selection of technological tools, you can provide complete and exhaustive solutions to your students, so that they will be able to cope with different digital tasks regardless of their personal preferences. |
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It is important to counterbalance and reconcile the two aspects of personalised instruction: respecting, addressing and allowing for differences when teaching and supporting learners in individualised ways in order to attain a set learning objective. To support learners in completing standardised assessments, you should vary your digital teaching materials, promote cooperative and individual projects and offer constructive confrontations. Give a certain assignment to your students and let them decide how they may solve the task with digital means they find suitable. This could be done as individual homework. Discuss the pros and cons of each approach, without evaluating solutions to be better or worse than each other. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Counterbalance individualisation with collaboration. |
Your answer: In my work environment it is not possible to actively involve learners in a language class.
Sometimes it is difficult to catch learners’ attention even in the best learning environments.
One possible way to involve students could be to count on their personal devices, and to promote individual initiative.
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By relying on learners’ personal digital resources, such as smartphones, you can positively involve them, and support more personalized teaching patterns. To employ technological tools in class can be seen by students as a refreshing and more inclusive approach to learning and learners will be able to practice both in class and from home, in an easily manageable way, and to express their creativity and opinions. |
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Most learners will have access to a digital device with internet access, even if it is only their mobile phone. You could take advantage of this by asking learners to search the internet for information as a homework task. Or ask them to take photos or videos exemplifying the subject of study. Learners can then bring this information to the classroom, to discuss in small groups, and/ or convert it into a presentation or artefact. From a language learning perspective, you could also advise students to use online grammar or vocabulary apps or even games via their smartphone or tablet. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Get started and get your learners involved. |
Your answer: I actively involve learners in the language learning process, using some digital technologies, e.g. videos or animations.
You know how to employ technology in order to render your language teaching more stimulating. Reflecting on how you can use digital tools to more actively involve learners in all phases of the course can be a useful addition at this stage. Also, at this stage, it is worth considering how digital strategies can help you address the problems and limits you are currently facing.
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Learners’ who feel actively involved in various activities are more prone to rise to a challenge and try harder. Operative participation is also extremely helpful in the learning process. Digital resources can be beneficial for addressing learners’ specific individual needs and for stimulating interaction. |
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Together with your students, produce and show a presentation. Encourage them to investigate a topic via internet research and to document their findings in the video or with pictures (e.g. via their smartphones) and to bring these together in the presentation. If learners' group discussions are time-intensive and not to the point, encouraging them to use a shared environment such as a blog, wiki or virtual whiteboard can help them focus and speed up work in class. Also consider the flipped classroom approach, where learners review learning material at home and then come to class ready to discuss what they have learned. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Explore digital solutions to enhance your strategies. |
Your answer: In my language classes, I use digital resources and apply motivating stimuli, e.g. videos, animations, cartoons.
At this stage, you can provide interactive and stimulating materials for your students. To support this, allow learners to not only enjoy, but also engage with this material. Help them to be responsible for their own language learning and foster their leadership in the learning process.
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Learning by doing is one of the most effective approaches for developing strong skills. Students can be positively engaged when feeling actively involved and can better express their creativity through a variety of technological tools and digital resources. |
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Let your students produce and show a presentation, either individually or in groups. Encourage them to investigate a topic combining internet research alongside videos and photos of their own. Make sure that you are there to guide them in this work, while also taking care to avoid undermining their ownership of the process. Carefully consider each topic at hand, which digital tools and which social settings and interaction modes are most appropriate. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include
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Implement more learner-led digital activities. |
Your answer: My language learners engage with digital media in my classes, e.g. electronic worksheets, games, quizzes, online written collaboration.
It is excellent that you know how to rely on technology in order to provide appealing teaching materials. At this stage, an additional step would be to further increase learners' autonomy and leadership for their own learning processes.
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Active and cooperative learning allows students to reinforce notions and linguistic skills. It also promotes interaction among learners and ensures they feel more autonomous and engaged in participating. |
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One way of enhancing more cooperative learning could be to reverse the supply chain: instead of you setting up digital resources (games, quizzes, etc) for learners, ask them to create resources for each other. Ask students to correct each other's mistakes, when answering the quizzes and encourage them to continuously improve their quizzes and to share them with other learners, lecturers and education providers. You could also encourage learners to choose their own topic for investigation, using digital technologies to find information, create artefacts and showcase their work. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Empower learners with independent research and more cooperative tasks. |
Your answer: My learners systematically use digital technologies to develop specific language skills, investigate, interact in online environments and create knowledge and digital learning content.
At this level, what is important is to keep improving your strategies.
This can involve continuously reflecting on the suitability of your approach and trying to ensure a high level in classes without leaving anyone behind. Be open to the suggestions of your students to improve learning strategies.
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Constantly working on and reflecting on your own teaching strategies allows you to refine your methods, empower your strengths and reflect on your mistakes. Your students will perceive that you adjust your materials to their needs and preferences, and it will positively affect their involvement. Allowing students to bring in their own ideas of how to implement digital tools in their language lessons will give them a feeling of inclusion and will strengthen their self-confidence. Be open to any suggestion without bias and expand your own skills by considering new ideas from your students. |
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Reflect on the balance between learners’ autonomy and guidance by considering which mechanisms are the best means of allowing learners to follow their own rhythms while at the same time ensuring that students with specific needs or who are struggling are also supported. Consider how you can help all learners to develop their strengths and work on their weaknesses, how they can learn from each other and from their mistakes, and how their collaborative effort can be turned into joint efforts that go beyond their individual expectations. |
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Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include:
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Critically reflect on and continuously enhance your strategies and be open to broaden your horizon on new digital helpers day by day. |