Digital literacy of language learners in two different contexts

Digital literacy has been defined by many researchers and practitioners with similar meanings but slightly different focuses. In Martin’s (2005) terms, for example, “digital literacy is the awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations.

This article also discussed about the concept of digital literacy and presents a digital literacy questionnaire questions related to the use of digital technologies and the level of digital literacy skills. It also reports the results of two studies that used in digital literacy questionnaire to investigate the digital literacy level of 100 English for academic purposes (EAP) students at a university in Australia and 70 English as a foreign language (EFL) students at a university in Japan and examine factors affecting their use of digital technologies for learning English. The findings of the studies provide some insights into the students' awareness and use of digital technologies and their views of the use of digital tools and resources for language learning. Each group showed a different level of expectations and needs in their digital literacy skills with a different background and experience. It is suggested that the expectations and needs of respondents to the digital literacy questionnaire should be taken into account when the results of the digital literacy questionnaire are presented and interpreted in different contexts.

Respons

            In my opinion, learning English based on digital technology is a good way to improve English skills. Because, nowdays, every students are familiar and they really often to use their gadget. Based on this statement, we can conclude that, beside of using gadget only for their daily life, we can exploit it in education too.

Technology is important to reach "innovative school" because with using technology,accessibility, professional development / staffing, and profile enhancement / recognition. These five things are the basic needs of the application of technology in schools. It is thus expected that schools fit the global balance but remain with their vision and mission that are correlated with school and local needs. (Abd Hayyi, 2011)

Beside of hone the ability of educators, we also can hone the ability of students too, because we as a teacher especially English teacher need to preparing our students' skills because it will very important and useful for their future. Now, anything in this world need technology. So, If the students are not ready or can not operate computers or etc, what will they get and what will they do in future?

Reference :

Post Kota News, Belajar Bahasa Inggris Dengan Menggunakan IT, Minggu, 15 September 2013 posted at 0:54 WIB

http://poskotanews.com/2013/09/15/belajar-bahasa-inggris-dengan-menggunakan-it/

Guraru, Guru Era Baru, Peran Teknologi dalam Proses Belajar Mengajar Masa Kini. Posted on May, 31 2017 by kalimah

http://guraru.org/guru-berbagi/peran-teknologi-dalam-proses-belajar-mengajar-masa-kini-10/