Digital Language Learning and Teaching: A Case Study

Digital learning is reshaping education in unprecedented ways. However, as far as language learning is concerned, the burden of innovation has mostly relied on the good will of individual teachers who have decided – sometimes in perfect isolation – to take advantage of the new technologies made available. Although institutions have increasingly offered their support so that language teachers could incorporate new technologies into their syllabi in a more organic way, e.g., by making use of either opensource or proprietary platforms installed in the institution’s systems, the “interaction” between the “container” and the “content” has been left to the individual teacher’s expertise until recently. Language textbook publishers have previously been reluctant to join the digitization of the learning experience, providing only a limited set of online tools (e.g., flashcards and tests) linked to their own textbooks, and waited until numbers would justify their complete involvement in the business. Some of them have now made up for their delay or absence, offering language teachers an integrated set of tools capable of relieving them from the most demanding and time-consuming tasks. This paper draws on the English classes taught to BA students in Economics in the past two years, and analyses the fully-fledged platform provided by the publisher of the adopted textbook, investigating its research-based design, ready-to-go activities and customizable content, and evaluating its impact on the development of digital learning and teaching skills.