One multi-academy trust has revolutionised its approach to language learning with the use of smart digital tools. Here, staff explain how the way we communicate and collaborate, both in our private and professional lives, is increasingly digital, and only likely to become more so.

However, researchers have found that less than half of British employers believe students are leaving full-time education with the advanced digital skills they need to enter the modern workplace.

The pandemic has been a catalyst for the education system to embrace a more digital approach, and many schools have chosen to develop new, creative curricula, employing blended teaching methods that take the best from in-person and digital learning in a remote setting to help embed much-needed digital skills.

One such institution is Leigh Academies Trust: a multi-academy trust formed of 31 schools in Kent and south-east London. Through the use of online tools, the modern foreign languages (MFL) departments in its schools have been able to bring traditionally book-based tasks to life.

“Translation can be a difficult skill to master when learning a second language. However, by using creative multimedia tools, we have been able to make these tasks more engaging for students,” says Stewart Dearsley, curriculum adviser for MFL at the trust, where students have been using the voiceover software within Adobe Creative Cloud Express, which has been particularly useful for practising and improving their oral skills.

The impact of tech in learning languages

“Voiceover allows students to record, listen and then practise correction if they aren’t happy with the way they are speaking the language,” he explains. “The recordings also get automatically saved in the software for students to revisit.”

Karen Pooley, a French teacher at one of the trust’s schools in Dartford, found that students who were usually reticent in class were “loud and clear” in their voiceover recordings. Remote and asynchronous learning has also been key in helping them to gain the confidence they lacked in the traditional classroom.

“They have enjoyed creating videos, collages and even websites to showcase their work in French and Spanish,” says Pooley. “I have noticed a greater engagement in their learning since using this approach.”

In another academy within the trust, students got to experience a live session with members of a school in Spain. The British students sent videos that they had created to their Spanish peers, sparking an interactive bilingual conversation between them.

“As well as teaching grammar and vocabulary, this kind of blended learning can breathe authenticity in teaching,” says Dearsley.

Adaptable blended learning for teachers

But such rich, multimodal learning experiences can only be possible when technology is accessible not only to tech-savvy students but to educators as well.

Daniel Bull is head of digital engagement at Leigh Academies Trust and highlights the importance of support for teachers in upskilling around blended learning. It is thanks to Adobe’s “dedicated teacher training tutorials” and “excellent” on-demand support, he says, that his MFL departments have been so enthusiastic about the process.

“This kind of training works as a great advantage, especially when promoting blended learning to teachers who might have a more traditional outlook towards learning,” he says. “And it takes only one to two hours to be certified.”

Staff at the trust have become so proficient now in using tech for these lessons, he says, that they’ve been creating their own bespoke online assessment tasks, which can now be shared quickly and easily, saving valuable staff time. And beyond classroom learning, Bull continues, these sorts of approaches are all about preparing students for the real world, with digital creativity cultivating vital skills such as communication, collaboration, curiosity, risk-taking and independent learning.

“The pandemic has proved that to thrive in the world, individuals need to have digital adaptability,” he says. “If we don’t teach our students these skills, they will be disadvantaged.” Dominic Traynor, Adobe’s education evangelist, concludes that cultivating the kind of digital familiarity that enables creativity to come to the fore can have a huge impact.

“Creativity is a competitive advantage,” he says. “It’s often the difference between standing out or fading away throughout an individual’s professional journey.”

This article was first published here.