Virtual Languaculture Task Implementation as a Mediator between EFL Teachers’ Digital Literacy and EFL Learners’ Speaking Fluency and Accuracy

COPYRIGHTS ©۲۰۲۱ The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY ۴.۰), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publisher. This study set out to explore the efficacy of EFL teachers' digital literacy in improving language learners' speaking fluency and accuracy through the development of virtual languaculture tasks. To this end, ۵۲ male and ۶۸ female EFL teachers from different areas of Kurdistan province participated in the study by completing a digital literacy scale developed by Ng (۲۰۱۲). Moreover, three groups of teachers, ۱۲ high and ۱۲ low-digitally literate teachers who used virtual languaculture tasks and ۱۰ teachers who used traditional teaching methods participated in semi-structured interviews, and their teachings were observed for ۸ sessions. Besides, by conducting an IELTS speaking test, ۱۲۱ male and ۱۲۲ female EFL learners of the three groups of teachers were selected to participate in this study. After conducting ۱۶-session treatments, a speaking test was used as the posttest.  The qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed via MAXQDA and SPSS. The results of one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of variance indicated the efficacy of the implementation of languaculture tasks in developing students' speaking fluency and accuracy. On the other hand, the qualitative phase of the study showed that being digitally literate influenced the development, implementation, variety, and complexity of languaculture tasks. Moreover, the attained results supported the superiority of the languaculture task as a mediator between instructors' digital literacy and learners' verbal ability. Accordingly, enhancing teachers' digital literacy and learners' critical languaculture awareness are suggested as useful strategies to improve language learners' speaking fluency and accuracy.

Keywords:

digital literacy , languaculture , speaking fluency and accuracy , virtual education