A presentation given at the 17th Association of University Language Centres Conference on 7th-8th January 2016.

1. Developing digital literacies through
observation and reflection
Ulrike Bavendiek
University of Liverpool
17th Association of University
Language Centres
Conference 2016

2. Content
• Digital literacies in the revised Subject Benchmark
Statement for Languages, Cultures and Societies
• Digital foreign language communication skills for
foreign language learners
• why?
• what?
• how?
• Example
• Questions/discussion

3. The Subject Benchmark Statement (2015)
Generic skills:
Students should be able to
• …
• use digital media effectively as a source of
information, a means of communication
and as an aid to learning
• …

4. Why teach foreign language digital
literacy?
To enable the language learner to
1. access authentic, relevant (specialist) information
2. increase contact, engagement and interaction with
competent users of the language
3. learn through participation, for greater learner
autonomy and lifelong learning

5. Why teach foreign language digital
literacy?
Language related skills
5.4. Language skills are likely to include a subset of related
skills. These will vary from the relatively simple to the more
complex, and could include such activities as online
interaction, talking on the telephone, video-conferencing, and
the use of target language documents for carrying out
research or writing reports. Many graduates will have
developed language skills that are applicable in a particular
professional context, such as education, law or business.
Subject Benchmark Statement 2015

6. Why teach foreign language digital
literacy?
Language learning related skills: Learning
through participation
Participation (both active, overt participation and ‘invisible’
engagement) is learning.
The ability to ‘participate’ fully, as legitimate members, in new
communities, […] and to take up and inhabit new subject
positions within those communities contrasts markedly with
the earlier emphasis on the less contextualized ‘acquisition’
of linguistic skills and knowledge.
Duff, 2008:112
Interaction and engagement with the community of practice
(Wenger 1998) is a form of learning.

7. What is digital literacy in the foreign
language?
Language and culture-specific knowledge, skills and
behaviour of online communication and interaction,
including:
• Knowledge about websites, networks, social media
and platforms that exist and are used in the foreign
language
• Ability to access relevant information in the target
language online
• Ability to find and access relevant information about
the target language online
• Adhering to culturally specific protocols and
behaviours in online interaction, awareness of
underlying values and ideas

8. How can digital literacy in the foreign
language be promoted?
One challenge for language teachers is to shape some
of their [the students] computer-using experiences into
language learning experiences.
Chapelle, 2001:2
Participation does not result in learning if
• The learner is able to comprehend a given text or
think that they are
• The learner expresses their communicative intentions
well enough to be understood or think that they are
• The learner does not notice the gap between their
own output and the target language variety

9. How can digital literacy in the foreign
language be promoted?
1. Knowledge about websites, networks, social media
and platforms that exist and are used in the foreign
language
• Reference all digital authentic materials properly.
• Offer a bibliography of relevant websites, blogs,
networks, apps etc.
• Ask students to write their own bibliography of
relevant sources, reference all digital authentic
materials properly. Collect and share.

10. How can digital literacy in the foreign
language be promoted?
2. Ability to access relevant information in the target
language online
• Access, use and critically assess authentic online
target language materials in class.
• Ask students to access, use and critically assess
materials based on their individual learning needs.

11. How can digital literacy in the foreign
language be promoted?
3. Ability to access relevant information about the target
language online
• Access, use and critically assess authentic online
tools, apps and learning materials, such as
dictionaries, apps, tests, grammar exercises,
language learner networks etc. in class.
• Ask students to access, use and critically assess
those tools and materials based on their individual
learning needs.

12. How can digital literacy in the foreign
language be promoted?
4. Adhering to culturally specific protocols and
behaviours in online interaction, awareness of
underlying values and ideas
• Encourage students to engage in online interaction with the
target language community.
• Provide scaffolding.
• Raise metalinguistic awareness. Notice and reflect on
linguistic similarities and differences between
a. language use in different target language media and
networks
b. target language use and native language use in similar
media and networks
• Identify characteristic linguistic features, e.g. in syntax
and pragmatics (intercultural sensitivity and
understanding).

13. How can digital literacy in the foreign
language be promoted?
• CMC in many social networks promotes language
and intercultural awareness because of
- the textual record it often leaves
- its semi-public nature
- its phatic nature
• Greater awareness helps students engage actively
by following the ‘protocol’ of the emergent and
noninstitutionally located ‘cultures of use’ (Thorne
and Black, 2007:134)

14. Example: Raising metalinguistic sensitivity
through online engagement and reflection
• Learning outcome: Greater awareness of the creative use
of non-standard linguistic features in German on facebook.
• Student group: C1 level learners of German
• Task:
a. Collect statuses and comments from predominantly
German language conversations from your friends on fb
and share in class.
b. Identify variations from the standard.
c. In groups, identify all variations which you think are
unintentional and delete them.
d. Group variations from the standard.
• Activity:
• Reflect on possible speaker intentions behind the
variations.
• Compare these linguistic features to features found on
facebook in English speaking communities.

15. References
• Chapelle, C. (2001) Computer Applications in Second
Language Acquisition – Foundation for teaching, testing and
research, Cambridge: CUP.
• Duff, P. (2008) ‘Language socialization, participation and
identity: ethnographic approaches’. In: Martin-Jones, M., de
Meija, A.M. and Hornberger, N.H. (eds) Encyclopedia of
Language and Education, 2nd edition, vol 3 Discourse and
Education, 107-119.
• Thorne, S.L. and Black, R. W. (2007) ‘Language and literacy
development in computer-mediated contexts and communities’.
In: Annual Review o Applied Linguistics, 27, pp 133-160.
• Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning,
Meaning and Identity. Cambridge, CUP.

16. Ulrike Bavendiek
University of Liverpool
Modern Languages and Cultures
u.bavendiek@liverpool.ac.uk
www.liv.ac.uk/soclasTwitter
@SOCLASLiverpool
Facebook Languages at Liverpool