Digital Meta-Skills Development for Interdisciplinary Competence in Foreign Languages Education

Abstract

The development of digital economy in the XXI century, elaboration of the networked society and communities of knowledge, digitization of education due to pandemic measures have led to revisions of the interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial job market demands of Liberal Arts university graduates' skillsets, upon entering the workforce. This, in turn, stipulates reevaluation of the interdisciplinary approaches to comprehensive professional competences in foreign languages acquisition, education, and application. The study is focused on the diagnostics of the development of meta-learning status, interdisciplinary interoperability of digital competence for students of European (English, Spanish, French, Italian, German) and Oriental (Mandarin Chinese, Japanese) Languages major programs through the span of educational activities in the time-frame of COVID-19 quarantine measures of March 2020 to April 2021. The inquiry derives a model of digital meta-skills for interdisciplinary competence in foreign languages education and professional application. The survey study is implemented to evaluate the digital meta-literacy of foreign languages majors through dimensions of interdisciplinarity of educational content, domains of professional application, soft skills, professional linguistic and communication skills, and customized digital skills for Foreign Languages Education.

Keywords

• foreign languages education (fle)
• digital communication
• digital meta-skill
• interdisciplinary competence
• digital literacy