Teacher Digital Skills in Online Language Teaching and Learning
Giedre Valunaite Oleskeviciene1 ✉️, Liudmila Mockiene2 ✉️, Lora Tamosiuniene3 ✉️ 1Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania 2Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania 3Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
Cite as: Valunaite Oleskeviciene, G., Mockiene, L. and Tamosiuniene, L. (2025, May). Teacher Digital Skills in Online Language Teaching and Learning. In SCS 2025, 2nd International Conference on Social Contexts of Science (p. 36). Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Poland.
Abstract
Technology-driven language teaching and learning is closely related to the need to integrate digital technologies into the language classroom. Technological advances are also evident in the work of the European Commission, which acknowledges the use of digital technologies to empower learners and launches numerous EU-funded research projects focused on the ICT use in teaching and learning. The OECD Program for International Student Assessment in 2021 ICT framework states that “technology profoundly transforming people’s work and professional life, significantly affects multiple facets of education, and provides new opportunities for students to learn outside of school and can change teachers’ pedagogical approaches and the learning experience of students in school” (PISA, 2021). Deacon et al. (2017) stress the need to integrate digital technologies into the language classroom as universities have the main goal of preparing learners for 21st-century employment with the necessary language and digital skills. In this context, improving teacher digital skills becomes one of the essential elements for teachers’ professional perspective and identity (Esther T. Canrinus et al., 2012) as it is related to improvement of the digital skills of the learner and improvement of the language teaching and learning process. According to the PISA framework 2021, educators’ ICT skills “depend on the availability, accessibility, and quality of ICT resources” and are important in improving learner digital skills (PISA, 2021). The changing didactic leadership in applying digital skills, i.e., the improvement of the digital skills of the teachers and the improvement of teaching alternating with the augmented digital agility of the learners, create a new didactic dialogue in the learning process. Teachers’ self-evaluation of their digital skills is an important factor in teachers’ self-identification as professionals. The current study aims to overview the change in the language educators’ perception of their digital skills in Lithuania. To address the teacher status in this new didactic experience, a digital questionnaire on Google Forms was employed for collecting and analysing the data in the current study. Based on the theoretical assumptions, the following research questions were formulated: How do language teachers in Lithuania assess the development and the perspectives of their digital skills? What digital resources and apps do language teachers in Lithuania use in teaching and learning languages? The research results reveal that educators feel the need to improve their digital skills related to language teaching and learning and see this as part of their professional identity. The study reveals that language educators possessing a higher level of digital skills tend to use more complex digital resources and lead in the digital classroom settings. The determination to further foster acquisition of digital skills necessary for teaching and learning reveals the presence of language teacher motivation to develop new professional competences in application of ICT. Also, two thirds of the respondents developed their digital skills without institutional or peer support, which reveals that digital skills appear to be a valuable part of their professional context and efficacy as well as motivation and, eventually, part of their professional identity.
Keywords
Language teaching and learning, Digital skills, Digital technologies, Questionnaire, ICT
Current status of the research is: Work-in-progress
Potential collaboration with Authors
digital technologies in teaching and learning, digital leardership, digital humanities