Didactic tools in foreign language teaching practices and research papers

Education in any context is based on a curriculum which is a structured plan of instruction that outlines the goals and content for teaching and learning of any academic course in compliance with standards requirements. It sets general guidelines for teachers which need to be practically implemented in everyday classroom activities both online and offline through the use of varied didactic tools. Didactic tools can be generally defined as a reasonable combination of diverse methods, aids, materials, tasks, and techniques, both digital and traditional, which are expected to promote student quality learning.

In foreign language education, related national standards and curricula often rely on the CEFR which is a worldwide standard framework for language skills and abilities [17] where six levels of foreign language competency are described. The subjectspecific aim of foreign language education is defined as the foreign language communicative competence at a certain level of its development. This competence is based on the system integration of language sub-skills, skills, soft skills, knowledge, and personal qualities which enable the student to effectively use the foreign language for varied meaningful purposes [2]. To achieve any competence level, teachers need to design such student practices that will lead to the desired outcomes. Obviously, a complex character of the expected outcomes as well as a diversity of learners with different features and needs require a great variety of didactic tools to facilitate learning. Thus, designing lesson and homework plans is based on didactic logistics which we define as the overall process of planning, organizing, and managing practical teaching and learning. An essential part of didactic logistics refers to identifying effective and accessible ways and tools to engage students in appropriate activities to become familiar with the content, to store and process information, and to develop the target competence components while using the content for real life goals. It is evident that there must be coherence and consistency among the goals, the tools, and the agents who apply them to optimize education processes from beginning to end. An education logistics management system therefore implies making efficient decisions in selecting appropriate tools and placing them wisely in the teaching plan intended for student learning.

The aim of the present article is to find out if foreign language teachers are aware of some didactic tools that have been highlighted in foreign language methodology in recent years and if they apply these tools in their practices to improve the student learning outcomes. Through this study, we will be able to conclude to some extent if teachers are skilled at the logistics management system applied in foreign language education. Our choice of the didactic tools for foreign language education was random based on our research and practical experiences. We brainstormed for those that are often described in related articles and discussed at research conferences and then we investigated if they are used in foreign language teachers` practices.