Thirteenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

The South African curriculum for languages aims to achieve communicative competence, the knowledge of using language competently and appropriately in a speech community. Moreover, the changing needs of society necessitate not merely language proficiency, but also technological proficiency. One of the burning issues in the South African educational landscape is the focus on the pedagogy of multiliteracies which foresees learners as decoders, encoders, and manufacturers of their own futures by exploiting technological possibilities to constantly create and recreate meaning. As such, 21st-century learners who work with multimodal texts become authors of their own learning experiences in discovering their capacity to acquire new digital skills for the century of multiliteracies. In higher education, it is particularly imperative that new technologies are used to achieve transformed practice. This paper reports on research on the integration of technology for language learning, conceptually founded in the theory of multiliteracies and which aims to achieve communicative competence. This qualitative study investigated the integration of technology for transformed language teaching of preservice Afrikaans, English, isiZulu and Sepedi teachers who sourced and evaluated Apps through collaborating online in a dedicated Blackboard module to develop interactive lessons. Data from the online discussions, focus group interviews, and reflective journals were thematically and inductively analyzed. Findings point to improved communicative competence and transformed practice.