Guichon, Nicolas. (2024). Reviewing research methods on adult migrants’ digital literacy: What insights for additional language teaching?. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 18 (1), 67-89.
This article reports on a selected literature review focusing on migrants’and refugees’ digital literacy. In the article, digital literacy is defined as, “the practices of communicating, relating, thinking and ‘being’ associated with digital media” (Jones & Hafner, 2012, p. 13) in the context of language learning.
The article includes a full list of the articles reviewed including authors, journals, country where the research was conducted, and research questions explored. Based on the literature review, the article provides a taxonomy of adult migrants’ digital literacy, the “outside the classroom” digital literacy practices of migrants, including, communication with family members, accessing crucial information online, and developing familiarity with the host culture through online media ( p.81).
In addition,the article includes an illustration and discussion of the migrant digital landscape (p.82), that is, the digital resources commonly used by migrants, including social media, official web sites, and mobile assisted language learning tools.
The author notes that while language skills have long been recognized as crucial to successful integration for newcomers, in the current digital age, digital literacy skills are also essential. In that context the author contends that language learning and literacy, and digital literacy should not be considered as separate entities but should be seen as interrelated, the one reinforcing the other. The article includes a short discussion of the implications for language teaching and teacher education and suggests strategies that language educators could employ to support and enhance the digital literacy skills of learners.
Having noted the relative scarcity of research focused on the digital literacy of migrants and refugees the article concludes with a discussion of possible future research directions to better understand the digital needs of this population, and to inform curricula and language teacher education and training to support the development of digital literacy skills.
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