Ensinar as línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior na era digital: uma experiência de inovação pedagógica

Abstract

Introduction: Learning Foreign Languages (FL) in Higher Education does not rest simply upon the transmission of linguistic knowledge. It should also prepare learners for intercultural contact and provide successful and innovative experiences, likely to foster motivation and favour professional placement. Several studies and reports emphasize the importance of FLs for recruitment purposes, the creation of job opportunities requiring responsibility and resulting in higher salaries or career opportunities.
Digital tools, with their easy and quick access, have revolutionized education and created new opportunities and challenges for teaching, namely in higher education. The learning context becomes more dynamic, more closely resembling the work context. The use of the internet and the exploration of online resources are current practices today. In an action-oriented perspective, student acknowledgement of linguistic and professional realities can be fulfilled using social networks and an on demand working method, encouraging them to be active actors who interact within the classroom and outside of it, mobilizing skills acquired in other nuclear Curricular Units (CU) of the course.

Methods: The work experiences hereby presented were conducted in 2016/17 and 2017/18, at ESEV – Higher School of Education of Viseu (Portugal), within a class of second-year Media Studies students attending the CU of "Foreign languages applied to new media and cyberspace", with French and English as target languages taught concomitantly.

Conclusions: The progression of learners is evident through the new ideas that arise and the better organization of the work, the greater ease and accuracy in writing texts and proposing oral productions, attitude in general and the acquisition of more autonomy in the search for development of skills.