Digital Empowerment in Language Teaching: Using Technology to Boost Learning, Creativity and Teacher Motivation
In the evolving world of education, digital tools are reshaping how we teach and learn. Knowing which tools are effective and how they impact student outcomes is therefore very important. Here we take a look at some of the results emerging from our Digital Empowerment in Language Teaching (DELTEA) project, examining how digital tools might boost linguistic knowledge, creativity, empathy, as well as teacher motivation.
Teacher motivation
Throughout 2023, DELTEA developed nine online digital professional development (DPD) modules. These modules aimed to improve teachers’ skills in using digital stories to promote foreign language literacy, vocabulary, phonics, and intercultural understanding. Here’s what the project found:
- Initial Teacher Confidence: Before the DPD modules, teachers completed a questionnaire to rate their language proficiency, autonomy, and sense of competence in various teaching aspects, including assessing progress and developing intercultural understanding. Teachers with lower self-rated language proficiency felt less confident, particularly in assessing progress. We also found from responses that teachers could be clustered into three distinct teacher profiles: Cluster 1 were high on sense of competence but low on sense of relatedness; Cluster 2, high on all of sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness; and Cluster 3 were high on sense of autonomy and relatedness but low on sense of competence.
- Impact of DPD Modules: After completing the DPD modules and completing the same questionnaire as before, teachers reported significantly increased autonomy for how they used teaching methods and materials. They also felt more competent in teaching reading and fostering students’ cultural insights, creativity, and empathy (CCE). These improvements were seen across each teacher cluster, indicating that the DPD addressed the needs of a range of teachers, regardless of their starting point.
Technology in the classroom
Digital stories
In the next phase of the project, 11 teachers implemented what they learned by using digital stories and phonics apps in their classrooms. Over six months, students engaged with stories read aloud by native speakers, accompanied by visuals and captions. This multimodal approach aimed to boost reading comprehension, self-efficacy, and creative thinking.
The stories were embedded in Nearpod, with activities that aimed to teach learners how to use comprehension strategies when reading, and also to encourage them to respond with creativity and empathy towards the texts. By incorporating visuals and audio, the stories offered more support than can be achieved through reading alone: a student listening to a story while reading along may well understand the language more easily. Plus, the variety of media keeps students engaged and supports the mapping of sound to the written form.
Language teaching offers a great opportunity to develop creativity and empathy in students. The project looked at how engaging with digital stories in a foreign language could enhance these skills. By asking students to put themselves in the shoes of a story’s characters, they were encouraged to think about what might happen next, about different perspectives and express their own feelings, fostering creativity and empathy.
For example, one activity asked students to imagine they were a character in a story who finds an abandoned dog and decide what they would do next. This not only makes the learning process more interactive but also helps students engage in creative thinking by coming up with their own scenarios and solutions.
Phonics App: Supporting Sound-Spelling Connections
Another innovative approach explored was using a phonics and pronunciation app to teach sound-spelling links. The app provided interactive activities that helped students practise their phonics skills and get instant feedback on their pronunciation.
What was the impact
Data analysis is still on-going, but what we know so far suggests benefits from technology in the following areas:
Vocabulary:
We tested students on their knowledge of words commonly taught at KS2, using a test that has already been widely used with students in England aged 7 to 11 in the PiPL project. Some of these words appeared in the digital stories and some didn’t.
Students in the intervention group significantly improved their knowledge of words encountered in the stories (although not of words that were not).
Those in the control schools showed no improvement in either set of words
Creativity:
Students in the intervention group showed greater gains in creative thinking compared to those in the control group, suggesting that engaging with rich digital content can enhance this skill.
In particular, there were differences in their scores for ‘flexibility’ or perspective-taking.
Self-Efficacy:
French language learners in the intervention group reported feeling more confident in their language skills after working with the digital stories.
Reading Comprehension:
There were significant gains in reading comprehension for the intervention group only.
That was especially the case when the content of the test (i.e. the words used) overlapped with the words used in the stories.
Reading aloud:
The one Spanish class who used the app for the full intervention period showed significant progress in how accurately they read aloud real Spanish words and non-words.
As yet, no significant benefits for attitudes towards language learning and empathy are apparent from using the digital stories but we will have a clearer picture once our analyses are completed.
Teachers’ and students’ views
We asked intervention students to complete a questionnaire at the end of the project, asking whether they had enjoyed the stories and being part of the project, whether they thought other children would enjoy the stories, what they had learnt and what the stories had helped them get better at. There were overall high levels of positivity. We also asked students if they found the stories difficult or easy. The fact that students were fairly evenly split on that question but a large proportion of them said they enjoyed the stories and had learnt from them suggests that this positivity may have been associated with the challenging nature of the stories.
We also interviewed some teachers, whose comments on what students had learnt are shown here alongside some from students.
Looking Ahead: The Power of Digital Tools in Education
Digital tools have the power to transform how we teach and how students learn, but their success depends on thoughtful integration into our teaching practices. The early findings from this project are encouraging, showing that digital texts, phonics apps, and professional development can positively impact both student learning and teacher motivation.
As educators, it’s exciting to see how these tools can open up new ways of engaging our students, building their skills, and even fostering their emotional and creative growth. For those interested in exploring these ideas further, a free professional development course based on this project’s findings is available. This is a great opportunity to dive deeper into the practical applications of these insights and see how you can bring digital empowerment into your own classroom.
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