No abstract

The current study intended to analyse the perception of foreign language higher education instructors and higher education students in Romania regarding the increase of their digital skills and the use of digital tools in the COVID-19 pandemic. Online instruction provided a multitude of challenges and opportunities for designing instructional content. Our respondents concluded that language learning games and gamified instruction represent valuable tools in reconfiguring the scenario within language classes. By exploring these opportunities that increase students’ participation, interactivity and accessibility, the teaching and learning experience can be improved and adapted to more complex and ever-changing technological advances.

This paper aims at providing an insight into the online/hybrid foreign language teaching and learning system in Romania. Drawing on the theoretical body of research of metacognitive and politeness representations within the field, the study further offers an analysis of how metacognition and politeness strategies are perceived by the main stakeholders of academic education (language learners and instructors). The focus is on describing specific aspects where the support metacognitive and politeness strategies enable a more responsible and engaging digital pedagogical framework that empowers learner autonomy and engagement. Emphasis is placed on highlighting context-ridden challenges observed in online/hybrid learning/teaching connected to various degrees of preparedness to deal with the dynamic frontal/online teaching shift and also on suggesting student-centred solutions. The obtained results of the study may inform subsequent developments of language mediation through the activation of digital cognition and social and emotional learning practices.