Abstract:

Digital technologies have a strong impact on all areas of our lives, including education. This paper focuses on the teaching foreign languages, in particular, English as a second/foreign language at lower secondary schools (learners aged 12-15 years). The main objective is to discover the potentials and limits of digital technologies in the process of instruction from the point of view of novice and experienced teachers. Four research questions were set to monitor the state:
(1) How are the main potentials of digital technologies for learning English from the teachers´ point of view?;
(2) What are the main limits?;
(3) Are teachers´ learners´ approaches to digital technologies different?;
(4) Which digital platforms and applications do teachers used for teaching English? Data were collected using a semi-structure interview that consisted of 11 questions. The qualitative approach was applied to analyse the answers of ten respondents from the Czech Republic. They were all fully qualified: novice teachers (N=6) graduated from the English language and literature master study programme. In addition to the qualification, experienced teachers (N=4) worked as mentors in basic schools where prospective teachers have their teaching practice. The data collected were structured into four categories:
(1) How often and for what purpose are digital technologies used;
(2) What educational applications the teachers used;
(3) What advantages and disadvantages digital technologies bring to English lessons;
(4) If digital technologies are considered helpful for teaching English. The results are presented through the lens of novice and experienced teachers, compared, and discussed. Instead of others, it was rather surprising that some pupils, digital natives, had problems working with educational applications while they daily use those for entertainment and private communication; and they made a lot of noise when working with the technologies, which was rather disturbing for others.

Keywords:

Digital technology, potential, limit, novice teacher, experienced teacher.