Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic induced amplified digitalization measures in the higher education sphere, informed by the need to take quick comprehensive action in order to achieve the overarching result to transform educational scenarios into interdisciplinary digital, blended, and hybrid frameworks. Taking into account the context of the erupted military intervention in Ukraine in February 2022, and the ensuing information warfare in various digital ambients (social media, news coverage, digital communications), the specific value of the learning outcomes and outputs is allocated to the digitally enhanced foreign languages education as a tool of the internationally broadcast strife of Ukraine for freedom and sovereignty. The study objective is to diagnose and critically review the dynamics of digital skills development and application to construe interdisciplinary competencies of students of European and Asian Languages major programs in Ukraine through the span of educational activities in the time-frame of COVID-19 emergency digitization measures of 2021 and wartime emergency digitization measures of 2022 in Ukraine.

The study results disclose the following structural dimensions of interoperable digital competence, instrumental for the efficiency of Foreign Languages Education:
1) Estimation of digital literacy level in the framework of emergency digitization for university programs of Asian and European languages;
2) Diagnostics of future specialists in FLE according to European e-Competence Framework and estimation of digital skills of FLE for professional application;
3) Diagnostics of digital skills of FLE for pre-service and in-service teachers according to UNESCO ICT Competence Framework;
4) Diagnostics of future specialists in FLE according to European Commission DigComp 2020 Framework to assess digital skills of FLE for digital citizenship;
5) Diagnostics of interoperability of linguistic/communicative/soft professional and digital skills for university programs of FLE: Dominant combinations of digital communication elements, instrumental for professional linguistic competence formation are estimated as follows:
1) semiotic competence is enhanced by such elements of digital communication as the creation of e-learning content, systemic use of ICT;
2) sociolinguistic competence is enhanced by participation in group ICT initiatives, systemic use of ICT;
3) discoursive competence is enhanced by systemic use of ICT, presentation to the community of the results of one’s activity via ICT;
4) strategic competence is enhanced the creation of e-learning content, presentation to the community of the results of one’s activity via ICT.

The study findings allow to estimate the interoperability of soft skills and digital competence dimensions in Foreign Languages Education, and to detect challenges for actual and underdeveloped skills (hard, technical, and soft), that stakeholders of the European and Asian languages education encountered through digital format adaptation in the emergency digitization timeframes in peacetime and in wartime. The comprehensive study results inform the derivation of recommendations for Foreign Languages Education in emergency digitization paradigms.

Keywords:

E-skills, digital education, digital literacy, foreign languages education, emergency digitization.