The Implications of Instructors’ Digital Literacy Skills for their Attitudes to Teach Critical Media Literacy in EFL Classrooms

Abstract

We nowadays are heavily reliant on media and information technology. With the proliferation of technological media, easily accessible information, and people's dependence on technological tools, it is critical to cultivate critical attitudes among internet users. Hence, at schools, teachers should assist students in acquiring critical media literacy (CML) skills. Having this consideration, teachers need to become more digitally literate. This study aims to: 1) inspect teachers’ digital literacy skills; 2) investigate teachers’ attitudes toward the application of CML based on their different digital literacy abilities; and 3) scrutinize the implications. We collected data from EFL teachers at a high school in East Java, Indonesia, through interviews, focus group discussions, and classroom observations. We used theme-based analysis to identify and categorize the data before presenting the findings. The findings show the instructors are computer literate. However, not all instructors are proficient in digital literacy. There are instructors who exhibit insufficient digital literacy skills, as seen by the teachers stumbling when using technology. The competent digital literacy teachers show positive attitudes for teaching CML abilities. Meanwhile, the less digital literate teachers display negative attitudes for teaching CML abilities. Finally, the study suggests that instructors should strengthen their digital literacy and CML skills.