FOREIGN LANGUAGE TRAINING IN NON-FORMAL EDUCATION AS A RESOURCE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL MEDIA LITERACY

Abstract

This report examines the importance of digital media literacy as a 21st-century competence and its role in the development of active modern individuals, who have the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes for full realization in the current dynamic, rapidly developing age of technology and strong connectivity with the media – electronic, print and internet based. The development of these competences should start from an early age and work on their perpetual upgrading and updating throughout the entire learning process. Formal education (schooling) is the natural environment where this process unfolds and is mastered. Given the nature of formal education, it is primarily regulation-based, dependent on state strategies and policies, and largely associated with administration and centralization. These features bring about clumsiness and dependence on the legal framework. Unlike many countries in Western Europe where media education has well established traditions, being an integral part of curricula, in Bulgaria this process is still quite undefined, not being overtly and clearly stipulated in the Act and by-laws for pre-school and school education, i.e. media literacy is not adequately integrated into formal education. Hence, taking into account the main characteristics of non-formal education, it appears to be that natural environment in which one can work methodically and purposefully to develop digital-media literacy. The subject of the present article is teaching foreign languages in educational centers (schools) outside of mainstream school as a strong resource for development of children's skills for working in digital environment, application of learning technologies and acquisition of critical thinking skills as an important element of digital-media literacy.