Case study: teachers of German as a foreign language at Portuguese universities - drivers of digital education in times of the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has given a huge boost to the digitalization of university teaching. A central challenge was the ad hoc conversion and adaptation of face-to-face teaching scenarios to digital teaching formats, while respecting the guidelines of both the ministry and the universities. During this transition, lecturers took on a high level of responsibility, as they had to make autonomous didactic decisions in the implementation of digital teaching. This paper focuses on the role of teachers as the driving force behind the digitization of teaching German as a foreign language in Portuguese universities in the context of the pandemic. The data obtained through the qualitative study presented here allowed us to analyze the experiences of teachers and students of German as a foreign language during the pandemic. We conclude that, despite the rapid availability of training courses dedicated to the use of digital tools by universities and the commitment of teachers and students, digital teaching requires not only technical prerequisites and digital skills, but above all a digital didactic specifically orientated towards the teaching of foreign languages in the university context. In the near future, filling this gap will be a central challenge in the process of defining appropriate strategies for digital language teaching.
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