Digital Textualities and Spaces in ELT E-Book
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- Herausgeber: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: Studies in English Language Teaching /Augsburger Studien zur Englischdidaktik
- Sprache: Englisch
The digital world opens up a vast number of spaces such as immersive virtual reality, digital book corners, and discourses marked by hashtags. In this volume, we argue that digital spaces and textualities should play a more central role in English language teaching and learning (ELT), emphasising their multimodal and interactive nature as a means of engaging with different layers of meaning in the target language. Digital spaces function as contact zones where readers and writers communicate, negotiate experiences, and shape collective identities. Within these spaces, digital textualities create opportunities for competence development across various language-related domains, fostering a critical engagement with texts. Bringing together theoretical insights, conceptual developments, and case studies, this volume explores the potential of digital spaces and textualities for ELT while addressing their practical implications.
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Theresa Summer / Ralf Gießler (eds.)
Digital Textualities and Spaces in ELT
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24053/9783381121229
© 2025 • Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KGDischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen
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Contents
Acknowledgements
We greatly appreciate the collaborative efforts that made this edited volume possible. First of all, we would like to thank the participants of the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Section at the Anglistiktag in 2022 in Mainz for presenting their research and contributing to this volume. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Roman Bartosch (University of Cologne) for taking the initiative to establish a TEFL section at the Anglistiktag. This platform enabled us to explore the potential of digital media and pop culture in English language education. We are particularly grateful to Engelbert Thaler (University of Augsburg), the series editor of this volume, for giving us the opportunity to publish this work in the SELT series. Also, we would like to thank him for his assistance in reviewing some of the contributions. Many thanks also go to Jeanine Steinbock (University of Würzburg) and Christiane Kallenbach (Transferstelle lernen:digital, University of Potsdam) for their support in reviewing our contributions. Finally, we would like to thank the team at Narr, particularly Lena Fleper, for guiding us through the publishing process, and our student assistant Lisa Theisen for her assistance in formatting the contributions.
Introduction
Introducing Digital Textualities and Spaces for ELT
1.ELT in the digital world
Recent developments in digital technologies have transformed the ways in which we interact, communicate, and learn. Stalder, in The Digital Condition (2018), describes the impact these technologies have had on contemporary society. This transformation is particularly significant for children and adolescents, who are growing up in this era of rapid digital transformation. They are increasingly exposed to digital tools and content, highlighting the importance of understanding how these technologies influence their perception of the world. According to the JIM Studie, twelve- to nineteen-year-olds spend nearly four hours online daily, primarily using messenger apps like WhatsApp (used regularly by 94 %) and social media platforms such as Instagram (used regularly by 62 %), and TikTok (59 %) (mpfs, 2023). Additionally, online series and films are popular among teenagers, reporting regular usage of YouTube (63 %) and Netflix (50 %) (mpfs, 2023). Beyond entertainment and communication, these digital tools enable an immersion in online environments, suggesting that people today are not merely using digital tools but actively engaging with and shaping digital spaces. Digital spaces such as the internet in general or social media posts, thus involve active participation, as is reflected in the concept of participatory cultures (Jenkins et al. 2009) including, for instance, expressions (i.e., producing new creative forms) and circulating (i.e., shaping the flow of media through blogging or podcasting).
This edited volume focuses on the concept of digital spaces from the perspective of ELT (see Sect. 2) and how these shape the ways in which young people interact, communicate, and absorb information. Children and adolescents are exposed to different values and lifestyles, for instance, through digital content provided by influencers on social media platforms. This frequent and regular dwelling in digital spaces holds significant risks. The aforementioned JIM Studie further reports that 58 % of adolescents have encountered fake news, two out of five were confronted with extreme political views or conspiracy theories in the last month, and 23 % have involuntarily encountered pornographic content (mpfs, 2023). With nearly three-quarters of teenagers reporting negative online experiences, navigating these digital spaces requires a set of skills and competencies for learners to succeed as global and digitally competent citizens.
The educational sector recognises the importance of equipping the younger generation with the skills necessary for living in this digital condition (cf. Redecker 2017), as highlighted in the KMK paper Lehren und Lernen in der digitalen Welt (2021). This document, a follow-up to Bildung in der digitalen Welt (2017), considers this new reality and emphasises the importance of moving beyond simply using new media to enhance learning, advocating instead for an understanding of digitalisation as an integral cultural reality. This perspective underscores the importance of developing digital competence among learners, described in detail by the European Commission’s Digital Competence Framework (DigComp). It outlines essential skills for navigating digital spaces, categorised into five areas: (1) information and data literacy, (2) communication and collaboration, (3) digital content creation, (4) safety, and (5) problem solving (Ferrari 2013: 12; Vuorikari et al. 2016: 12). The DigComp framework thus emphasises a comprehensive approach to digital competence, equipping learners with the necessary skills to effectively engage with, create, and manage digital content while ensuring safety and fostering problem-solving abilities in an increasingly digital world.
Consequently, being literate in the era of digital transformation no longer means being able to just read and write. In other words, learners not only require print-based literacy but also digital literacy which involves a range of skills necessary for a successful and ethically responsible participation in today’s society. Digital literacy practices from a sociocultural perspective encompass different practices of communication in digital spaces such as reading a Wikipedia page, navigating a Google map, searching for information on Google, or evaluating news (Tour 2020: 4), activities which are integral to foreign language learning. Building on Green’s (2002) model of 3D literacy, Tour describes three interrelated dimensions of digital literacies as social practices: operational (e.g., decoding words or using technological functions), cultural (e.g., focusing on the appropriateness of language use), and critical (e.g., problematising and critiquing digital spaces and texts) capabilities (Tour 2020: 5–6). Emphasising the cultural dimension, these capabilities align with contemporary definitions of digital literacies, which are described as “the individual and social skills needed to effectively manage meaning in an era of digitally networked, often blended, communication” (Pegrum et al. 2022: 5).
Against this backdrop, this edited volume presents different digital spaces with specific textualities, which need to be theoretically conceptualised before teachers might consider incorporating these digital spaces into English language teaching (ELT). Previous works in ELT research have discussed the importance of digital learning and teaching (Lütge et al. 2021), the teaching of literature online (Stadler-Heer/Paran 2022), and the growing ubiquity of born-digital texts including texts like let’s play videos, fanfiction, and digital storybook apps (Kersten/Ludwig 2024). As is described in the introduction to Kersten and Ludwig’s edited volume Born-Digital Texts in the English Language Classroom (2024), two features of born-digital texts, namely, authorship and the modalities of meaning can serve to promote key competences in the areas of functional communicative, audio-visual, global, text, and language learning competence, as well as language awareness (Becker et al. 2024). What is more, the recent edition of the national educational standards for modern languages (KMK 2023) states that foreign language-specific digital competence (“fremdsprachenspezifische digitale Kompetenz”) should be understood “as a transversal competence that permeates all dimensions of foreign language learning and the overarching learning goal of intercultural and multilingual discourse competence” (KMK 2023: 25). The educational standards further emphasise that learners thus need to acquire competencies for receptive, productive, and interactive participation in multimodal forms of communication. Furthermore, they need to learn to critically reflect on the use and content of digital opportunities (spaces) to support their own foreign language learning both within and outside of school (KMK 2023). Taking this as a starting point, this volume explores the concept of digital spaces and textualities by providing a theoretical basis, a tentative framework to capture the complex interplay of digital spaces and textualities to highlight the diverse opportunities available for educators to integrate digital literacy practices into English language education.
2.Defining Digital Textualities and Spaces
Digital technologies have become an inherent part of everyday life. Digital tools and educational technology are not something we use; more than that we are constantly “entangled in complex ways” in various digital spaces (Forsler et al. 2024: 4). The term digital spaces is commonly defined as “the world of virtual reality, databases, spreadsheets, the internet, music, electronic books, films and videos, Facebook, Twitter, phone calls, Skype and all things digital” (Benyon 2014: 37). We make us of mobile technologies while being linked up to an ensemble of other devices, which allows us “to exist at one and the same time in a local, geographical space of places and a global, digital space of flows” (Pegrum et al. 2022: 24).
In this contribution, we focus on digital spaces in the context of foreign language education, that is, English language education, in particular. Due to the frequent usage of the term English language teaching (ELT) in international contexts, we employ this term although it admittedly focuses too narrowly on the target language in the singular and excludes the term learning which is, of course, a central concern to how we approach this field of theory, practice, and research. In a nutshell, the volume aims to explore how both digital spaces and textualities can be theorised and practically implemented into foreign language, specifically English, lessons. In educational settings, the boundaries between the physical classroom and the digital (virtual) spaces are dissolving to some extent. In today’s classrooms, learners can easily move from conventional learning spaces with pedagogic activities and face to face interaction to digital spaces where they engage with digital tools and applications on their tablets (Forsler et al. 2024). This is what the contributions in this volume show (see Sect. 3): current classrooms exist as a hybrid of both digital and physical (learning) spaces. In fact, the Covid pandemic underscored the critical importance of the socio-spatial aspect of learning. Merely doing tasks and uploading them in a Learning Management Software (LMS) does not fulfil the human need for participation, feedback, belonging, and social rapport. As such, the concepts and projects described in this volume demonstrate how physical and digital elements come together to support language learning in what is called the post-digital classroom by some (Forsler et al. 2024).
It follows from this that post-digital learning spaces are both physical and digital. Abandoning dichotomies and embracing the notion of the “post-digital classroom” can be a new paradigmatic vantage point from which we can examine specific digital spaces and their corresponding technologies.
2.1Defining Digital Spaces: The PACT Model
In this volume, we will employ the term “digital space” as an overarching concept to capture the complex “interplay of social and technical elements” (Calder/Otrel-Cass 2020: 444) inherent in digital environments. In the following paragraphs, we aim to elaborate on the concept of digital spaces by giving preliminary answers to the following questions:
What is the nature of digital spaces and which theoretical concepts exist?
Which features of digital spaces have the potential to foster foreign language learning and critical reflection?
How can digital spaces become learning spaces for foreign language learners? Which feature of a digital space makes it a learning space?
Notably, the term digital space is mentioned in several publications when references are made to the importance of digital literacy (e.g., Reyna et al. 2018; Tour 2020) or learner autonomy (Fuchs et al. 2021). In that sense, digital spaces offer more choices and options for learners and can thus potentially foster learner autonomy. As Fuchs et al. note, “[t]echnology is linked to increased flexibility and learning choices in terms of language input and its delivery, and adaptable temporality and spatiality for learning” (2021: 4). Other scholars like Bloch (2021) stress the multimodality of digital spaces, hereby referring to multimodal literacy spaces which are characterized by multimodality being added to text. Bloch (2021: 86–87), however, concedes that “while a multimodal space can incorporate both print and digital literacies, their relationship must be thought out”.
To theoretically conceptualise digital spaces for ELT, we draw on the PACT model by Benyon (2014) used in the context of human-computer interaction to describe the interdependence of four elements: people (P), activities (A), contexts (C), and technologies (T). This model helps us to understand how characteristics of technologies interact with each other and with people – the “beginning of designing a digital space” (Benyon 2014: 38). Depending on the situation, the needs to be met or the communicative intentions, people will use technology in certain ways to carry out specific activities, determined by the user interface. Benyon (2014: 1) suggests “that we use the concepts of spaces to think about interactive experiences. Spaces lead us to think of places, ecologies and environments. We can think about insides and outsides, about boundaries and horizons. We can think about moving through spaces, about paths”.
For the context of ELT, the PACT model provides a framework for describing digital spaces and their interrelated elements which have implications for the teaching and learning of English. People (P) involved in the learning process include learners and teachers, but of course, also all other types of people actively involved in the reception or (re-)production of digital content or the interaction about it. Considering that especially children and adolescents are involved in different forms of digital communication, also in English when using digital technologies (Uhl 2019), it is crucial for ELT to recognise these real-life experiences and employ teaching approaches that promote relevant competence development. This can be achieved through certain activities (A), which – in the context of ELT – are pedagogical in nature as they fulfil certain learning goals. These activities can include all sorts of tasks, for instance, developed to foster certain skills and competencies. The contexts (C) of learning comprise informal and formal learning scenarios. Whereas formal learning aligns with institutionalised education in schools, i.e. ELT, informal learning includes everyday learning outside of school and is largely (but not always) unintentional (Uhl 2019: 59). When we consider the manifold ways in which learners encounter English through films or series, songs, and social media, it becomes clear that these engagements provide opportunities for ELT. Technologies (T) include all sorts of technological tools, for instance, Busuu, Kahoot!, and Socrative (for an overview of digital tools in foreign language teaching see Dausend 2021) and also developments within the fields of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive virtual reality (iVR). The possibilities that these technologies provide for foreign language education are manifold, which is reflected in the contributions to this edited volume. On these grounds, there is a need to conceptualise digital spaces for ELT, which allows us to highlight four central aspects, as displayed in the PACT model. This model reflects “this idea that you cannot take people out of their environment, just as you cannot take a fish out of water and expect it to continue living as a fish” (Benyon 2014: 6). What is more, Benyon notes that the PACT model is a simplification and that in real life, there are “combinations of Pacts going on and evolving over time” (5). As such, the PACT model depicted in Figure 1 represents a simplification of a far more complex and complicated process. In other words, it is an idealised model that prototypically illustrates how the four components relate to each other in one digital space but, in reality, these four elements overlap and multiply. For example, in Booktok or Bookstagram, users may write a review about a book they have been reading, respond to other readers’ comments or search similar books by the same author or of the same genre.
The four elements of PACT provide an important theoretical basis for preparing teachers to teach in the post-digital classroom. Whereas real-life engagement with technologies (T) by people (P) serves real-life purposes in real-life contexts (P), for instance, when an individual opens a website to check the weather forecast (A), ELT serves to foster a set of skills and competencies in learners. Consequently, teachers play a central role in developing goal-oriented learning activities in particular contexts. They also need to develop, model, and scaffold activities that are possible in certain digital spaces, for example, finding anchors for hyperlinks in hypertext fiction. Teachers are also the ones who can stimulate learner reflection about the potential choices that they encounter in informal learning contexts. In formal contexts, teachers initiate competence development through the design of goal-oriented tasks. Against this backdrop, the following section will outline some further features of digital spaces and illustrate them by referring to specific contributions in this volume.
Fig. 1: The PACT Model applied to ELT (based on Benyon 2014: 4)
2.2Features of Digital Spaces
Digital spaces need content, a generator, and a portal (Gee 2005).
Let us illustrate this claim with a few examples: A digital poetry escape room (cf. Thaler/Meininger, this volume) is a digital space which provides opportunities for engaging with lyrical texts. Without any content, a poem, this digital space would barely exist. Music platforms like Spotify need content, that is, songs and music videos. Other digital tools like Padlet are void of any content and allow the user to create pads on a particular topic. Second, a digital space needs a generator, that is, people or an algorithm or a bot that create content. Music platforms like Spotify cannot be imagined without artists and musicians (or AI tools) that composed and published their music. Third, digital spaces require portals, i.e. interfaces or gates “through which people or programmes such as search engines access content” (Calder/Otrel-Cass 2020: 449). The search functions are varied: it is possible to search for a particular artist’s latest productions or to search for music in a particular mood.
Spaces exist through the people who inhabit them or dwell in them.
Heidegger (1951: 12) asserts that “the relationship between human and space is none other than dwelling”. We can relate this notion of “dwelling in a space” to digital spaces. For instance, on Spotify or YouTubeMusic, users can listen to a song or watch a music video, they may also decide to stay, dwell a little bit longer in that space and perform other activities, such as rating the song or video, sharing it with a friend or have the system suggest similar artefacts of the same genre or by the same artist. Metaphorically speaking, they dwell in that particular digital space.
Upon entering a digital space, people can extend themselves, physically, mentally, and emotionally in many directions. The semiotic material that users encounter creates a user experience which has people “feel more or less present in these media and more or less engaged with the content of the media” (Benyon 2014: viii). A tool like Etherpad, for instance, enables collaborative writing in real time. But only the moment when people join Etherpad and jot their ideas down, it becomes a digital writing space. Social Virtual Reality (iVR) becomes a space through the people who enter it with their particular avatars and choose, for instance, a particular piece of clothing. In that sense, digital spaces allow users to interact and converse about a given topic of societal relevance.
Digital spaces function as affinity spaces where people gather and huddle together because they share particular interests, hobbies, or passions (Gee 2005).
Gee (2005, 2018) conceptualizes digital spaces as “affinity spaces”. These spaces are characterised by a collective intentionality (Calder/Otrel-Cass 2020: 450): People come together because of shared interests or engagement with a shared activity in spaces such as a church, a sports clubs or in political parties. In contrast to communities, the bonds between users in digital spaces are looser, allowing “different intensities of involvement and participation demonstrated by different members” (Calder/Otrel-Cass 2020: 445). Readers of Doris Pilkington’s novels, for instance, might connect with fellow fans in online communities such as Booktok or Bookstagram, where they can engage in discussions about specific narrative elements or write fan fiction. Conversely, accessing a music video clip merely requires a short visit on YouTube. Padlet only becomes a “dwelling” space when a community of writers posts their ideas in “pads” and starts commenting their peers’ posts.
Digital spaces offer distinct affordances that influence and shape social practices.
Digital spaces are shaped not only by technology but also by the specific actions that users can carry out in them. As Calder and Otrel-Cass note (2020: 445), “[d]igital technologies and mobile technologies open up new spaces for communication, collaboration, creativity and entertainment. The kind of engagement that takes place in a digital medium is influenced by the affordances of the medium itself”. Affordances are opportunities for action which individuals perceive in interaction with objects in their immediate environment. To give an example, in social media, the hashtag symbol (#) can be seen as an index marker. The symbol # is a visible cue that invites communicative and discursive action. Such an invitation for communicative or discursive action is what we conceptualize as the affordance of any hashtag in a specific digital space such as “X” (formerly Twitter). Once the symbol # is perceived in a social media post, the user or reader can decide to respond to it and thus join a conversation e.g. about the consequences of climate change. Users of “X” may create their own posts with new hashtags or retweet other posts (La Rocca 2020: 5). Hypertext fiction is a space for digital storytelling. A specific affordance of hypertext fiction is that readers can decide for each link whether to follow it by clicking it or not. Learners who engage in digital storytelling set up a digital space in which they do not only tell a story, but also – seemingly – allow their readers to shape the plot by choosing particular hyperlinks.
Digital spaces offer opportunities for creativity and artistic expression.
Digital spaces can set up a rich learning environment in which learners can experiment with novel narrative designs that would be difficult to create in a print-based format. Digital Storytelling (DST) can be broadly defined as the exploration of “different media and software applications to communicate stories in new and powerful ways” (McLellan 2006: 26). Digital tools that exploit the inherent human drive to tell stories (Smed et al. 2021: 10) offer many ways how users can make their voices heard by telling their own stories. DST allows students to draw on other modes of meaning making such as images, audio, or video. By placing storytelling into the digital realm, DST can encourage learners to combine different media formats to create compelling stories (Castañeda 2013: 45).
All in all, digital spaces are dynamic environments that offer distinct opportunities for content creation, engagement, collaboration, and creativity. These opportunities are closely aligned with the 21st-century skills, or the “4Cs”, which include critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity (Battelle for Kids 2019). Integrating these digital spaces into ELT practices presents opportunities for enhancing these competencies. Furthermore, digital textualities play a crucial role in this context, a term that will be explored in the following section.
2.3Digital Textualities
Texts play a significant role in foreign language education not only because they provide input, which is a prerequisite for language acquisition (e.g., Gass 2005), but also because they can offer inter- and transcultural insights – for instance, through films (Viebrock 2016) or children’s literature (Bland/Lütge 2013). Educational guidelines thus attribute a crucial role to texts in foreign language classes. Indeed, a broad definition or extended notion of texts is prominent in current scholarly discussions. The proliferation of new text types and genres in the digital age via the worldwide web has given birth to an “extended notion of text” (Bateman 2014) whereby the term text subsumes audio-visual input as well as multimodal and digital texts in which different modes of meaning are combined (Lütge et al. 2021: 232).
As multiliteracies theory explains, the different modes realize written, visual, spatial, tactile, gestural, audio, and oral meanings (Kalantzis et al. 2016: 230). As children and adolescents are chatting online with their friends or scrolling through social media posts, for example, they encounter multimedia content through pictures, accompanying tunes, moving images, emojis, and written words. Hence, a broad definition of texts that goes beyond the textbook dialogue or a printed novel needs to include, e.g., music videos and social media posts thus reflecting the everyday reality of learners’ engagement with texts in a digital world.
In the digital age, we can witness a significant shift in the way we communicate via texts in various digital spaces (both in reception and production). On these grounds, it has become more difficult to define text as such. Is it a fixation of meaning? An act of communication with a specific addressee? A display of power or ideology? Importantly, a text can be a said to be “undecided” (Silverman 1986: 54) or underspecified: The borders of the text are not the lines, the paragraphs or the title. A reading of the text occurs through its textuality or textualities. “Its textuality is precisely the condition of not setting clear lines of demarcation between the intratextual and the extratextual, between what counts as part of the text and what does not” (Silverman 1986: 58).
That is why we consider the term “digital textualities” to be particularly suitable for describing the complex interplay of technology, activities, and context in digital spaces and to capture their communicative and interactive affordances. Trimarco (2017) states that digital textuality can be characterized by its multimodality: the interplay of linguistic, visual, and auditory elements (Trimarco 2017: 2). The textuality of digital texts, that is, their meaning structures, can be more enigmatic (Trimarco 2017: 57). Due to their use of multiple modalities (e.g. visuals, audio), their non-linearity and interactivity (Lütge et al. 2021: 236f.), the meaning structures of digital texts may be harder to grasp. Lütge et al. (2021: 231) also advocate for the use of the term “digital textualities” as it denotes the phenomenon and the attributes of changing textual forms in the digital age. We thus contend that the concept of textualities is an appropriate concept for describing the distinctive attributes of “texts” in digital spaces.
The interactivity of digital texts (cf. Lütge et al. 2021: 237) is one of their specific affordances and manifests in three different ways: (1) The technology in a specific digital space can function as a mediator for interaction and allow users to write reviews or post comments in Spotify or YouTube. (2) Configurational activity “allows a user to define how a text is delivered to them” (Lütge et al. 2021: 237), for instance, via a streaming platform. (3) Navigational interactivity is realized through an ensemble of hyperlinks that allows readers to shape the narrative or follow subplots on their own. Algorithmic interactivity builds on a reciprocal relationship between user input and a digital tool’s response (ibid.) – an idea that is realized in the Digital Poetry Escape Room (cf. Thaler/Meininger, this volume).
Let us examine some examples that may illustrate these features of digital textuality. Social media users may hide the exposition of their political views by using a # with a short phrase like #notmypresident. After U.S. President Joe Biden had won the last election, this hashtag was the object of meaning changes due to retweeting and a rekindled debate between Trump supporters and Democratic voters (cf. Gießler/Becker, this volume). Social media users and prosumers (Thaler, this volume) of music videos are expected to disentangle the meaning structures that come to them as multi-layered digital textualities. In literal videos, for example, users create an alternative song text from what they see. This song text agrees with the melody and the phrasing of the original song, but merely describes literally what is depicted in the video (e.g. in Pat Benater’s Music Video “Love is a battlefield” the dancers’ movements are described in full detail like in an aerobic video). The visual element of a music video may contradict or support the lyrics of a song.
In relation to the contributions presented in this volume, we argue that the concepts of digital spaces and digital textualities are complementary. Digital texts differ from traditionally printed texts in the way they make use of the affordances of technology (Trimarco 2017: 2). Due to the multimodality, interactivity, and non-linearity of digital textualities, the meaning structures of digital texts, i.e. their textuality, can be said to be more fluid and unbounded. The practice of recombining texts from various media and disparate cultural spheres has ostensibly expanded in the last decade and calls for the need to become aware of specific digital textualities and their meaning structures. This assertion will be further illustrated through the various case studies and contributions in this volume.
3.The Contributions to this Volume
This edited volume presents various examples of digital spaces and textualities. We aim to address conceptual developments as well as practical applications in ELT and EFL teacher education, both at universities and in teacher training programs. Accordingly, Section 1 explores examples of digital spaces and textualities, elaborating theoretical constructs and teaching concepts while outlining their potential for ELT. Section 2 addresses digital spaces and textualities in the context of teacher education to illustrate how future teachers and practicing teachers can develop the necessary skills and competencies for ELT relevant in an era of digital transformation.
Section 1 begins with the contribution “TikTok for Book Lovers? –Bookfluencing in English Language Teaching”, in which Christian Ludwig and Michaela Sambanis illustrate how digital technologies are transforming the ways in which young generations read and interact with literature through social media. Focusing on how book influencers (bookfluencers) share their reading experiences on social media, they explore the potential of bookfluencing for literary learning in ELT through a suggested task sequence. The second contribution “Opening Up Digital Spaces: Towards a Progression of Hashtags as Small Texts in the EFL Classroom” by Daniel Becker and Ralf Gießler raises the question about the relevance of hashtags as a form of digital textuality in ELT. Despite their important position in digital language use and communication, hashtags have not received any attention in EFL research so far. It will be argued that a hashtag can be used in teaching contexts in a narrow sense when the hashtag itself (i.e., #-symbol + word/phrase) becomes the learning object. From a broader perspective, the hashtag and all its related tweets and posts become the object of studying. They do not only allow learners to gain insights into lexical and grammatical patterns of the English language, but also provide opportunities for meaningful communication and the development of communicative competences in the classroom. In addition, they can raise learners’ awareness of digital discourse patterns and the representation of cultural and societal trends in social media.
Engelbert Thaler, in his contribution “Music Videos Revisited”, examines the rationale behind using new genres such as literal music videos, user-generated content, and remixes in ELT, while also outlining practical approaches based on the German educational standards. The benefits of interactive and hypertext fiction are addressed in Sean Holt’s contribution on “Exploring the Possibilities of Hypertext Fiction for English Language Education”. Hypertext fiction, one of the first digital genres, can stimulate writing in the context of digital storytelling in EFL contexts. Holt considers the potential benefits of integrating digital fiction into ELT and investigates some practical learning opportunities that arise from the affordances of the genre. Finally, a process-based approach for immersing language learners in interactive writing with hypertext fiction is suggested.
In “The Digital Poetry Escape Room: Sparking Pupils’ Motivation for Poetry through a Competicooperative Environment”, Isabelle Sophie Thaler and Benedikt Meininger introduce an innovative approach to teaching modern poetry through digital escape rooms, combining elements of gamification (i.e., competition) with cooperative learning. The authors report on a school-university collaboration through which they aim to explore new ways of sparking pupils’ motivation for poetry through a so-called “Digital Poetry Escape Room” (DPER). Escape rooms are one way to realize games-based language learning, as players have to work through a number of tasks. Thaler and Meininger’s approach is innovative since there is only scant research on escape rooms for language learning purposes (Quariachi/Wim 2020; Bradford et al. 2021). The idea to link educational escape rooms and performance poetry is explained. The planning and implementation stages of their project is described in detail so that readers such as practicing teachers can adopt the idea to other content or text types.
In “A Survey on Songs in ELT among Pre-Service Teachers in Germany: Experiences, Attitudes, and Future Potential”, Theresa Summer, Valentin Werner, Regina Grund, and Manfred Krug present findings from a survey on lyrical texts which seeks to explore university students’ school experiences in working with songs and their general attitudes towards them. The quantitative and qualitative findings show that the participants recall a number of different types of songs used in their English lessons and they see considerable potential of songs in ELT for fostering different competences and engaging with a variety of topics.
Section 2 of this volume focuses on teacher education and includes three contributions originating from the project DiSo-SGW (Digitale Souveränität als Ziel wegweisender Lehrkräftebildung für Sprachen, Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften in der digitalen Welt). This project is part of the competence network lernen:digital, which is funded by the BMBF, and aims to develop and evaluate research-based teacher training modules across several subjects, including foreign languages. In “Promoting Global Citizenship Education in EFL Teacher Education: Immersive Anti-Bias Training through Social Virtual Reality”, Maria Eisenmann and Jeanine Steinbock discuss the development of virtual anti-bias training programs aimed at equipping future teachers with the skills and perspectives needed to foster global citizenship and inclusivity in the classroom. They describe learning aims and refer to a model illustrating how social virtual reality (SVR) can contribute to central skills of global citizenship education. Claudia Schnellbögl, Michelle Zirkel, Anna Bösendörfer, and Theresa Summer contribute to the discussion on global citizenship education and teacher education in their contribution “Foreign Language Teachers’ Perspectives on Global Education, Digital Media, and Extended Reality”. The authors conducted a survey to examine foreign language teachers’ perspectives on digital technologies, specifically in the context of global education. Their findings reveal that while foreign language teachers are generally aware of global topics and express interest in incorporating these into their teaching, they seem rather unfamiliar with relevant technical terminology. Teachers exhibit a promising openness towards digital media and a positive attitude towards extended reality (XR), despite limited prior experience in educational contexts, thus underscoring the need for targeted teacher training modules in this area. Finally, “Teacher Training Courses for Integrating AI and VR into Foreign Language Education” by Theresa Summer, Maria Eisenmann, and Andreas Grünewald provides insights into three interrelated research projects and outlines how these aim to foster digital sovereignty among foreign language teachers through the application of artificial intelligence and virtual reality in school teaching. The authors discuss important principles that guide their development of teacher-training modules while also providing insights into the conceptual design and thematic focus of their teacher training courses.
4.Conclusion
The digital age is in full bloom – and digital learning is here to stay (Carrier/Nye 2017). The teaching and learning of English today is not primarily about identifying the potential of new media or integrating digital texts or technologies. Rather, it is about acknowledging the culture of digitality and the interdependence of people, activities, contexts, and technologies. This interdependence is reflected in the PACT model (Benyon 2014) and was thus applied to ELT in this introductory text. We hope to enrich the discussion of digitalisation and the digital transformation in the context of ELT by using the PACT model to describe how technologies and people interact, how different contexts impact ELT, and which central role activities play in that regard. The two notions of digital textualities and digital spaces are complementary to each other and, for the contributions in this volume, they serve as overarching concepts (or heuristic tools) to capture (and further explore) the complex interplay of interactivity, multimodality, and technology found in digital spaces.
The contributions in the volume shed light on selected digital textualities and spaces by examining their benefits and challenges for ELT. Language education cannot ignore those tendencies and realities but rather needs to (re)conceptualise language instruction in formal settings. In that sense, micro-level activities (e.g., finding anchors for hyperlinks), fine-grained functions of particular tools or general configurations of tools such as social virtual reality deserve attention and reflection from an ELT perspective. The examples in this volume include various types of digital texts (e.g., music videos, book blogs, hashtags) and digital platforms (e.g., escape rooms, virtual reality spaces). As such, they provide insights into the digital infrastructures that need to be navigated by learners and teachers in an age of digitality. A better understanding of “how digital devices communicate and interact and about the digital infrastructures that facilitate that” (Benyon 2014: 37) is vital if we want to fully exploit the communicative potential of post-digital ELT. As such, both concepts, digital spaces and textualities, can be viewed as fundamental components of digitality’s infrastructure, as they are experienced by children and adolescents in their daily interactions, communicative initiatives, and collaborations.
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