Language Instructors’ Digital Competences in the Context of Emergency Remote Teaching: A Professional Didactics Perspective

Abstract

This thesis presents ten interviews with French language teachers regarding their experience of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the Covid-19 pandemic. Their responses are analysed through the lens of professional didactics (Pastré, 1999), and by looking at models that have been created to describe the adoption of technology. The interviews are placed in the context of similar studies done before or during the pandemic. The instructors in this study were asked to describe their experiences from the sudden switch to online teaching during the pandemic and for the first eighteen months of it, including how they coped, what new digital competencies they developed and how, their perception as online teachers. and the digital practices they would like to carry forward. The models to describe technology integration are revisited in the context of ERT. Recommendations are made for stakeholders for language instructors’ professional development in the case of future ERT scenarios.