A Study on the Composition of Discussion Tasks for Foreign Undergraduates in the Digital Literacy Environment

This study proposes a detailed structure of Korean debate assignments that can be utilized in a digital literacy environment. First, it examined the relationship between learners’ collaborative problem-solving skills and their debate abilities, the components of debate abilities, and learners’ cognitive characteristics required for surveying debate materials. It then presented an example of a debate assignment structure that can be used in actual classrooms. The usefulness of the debate assignments examined in this study are as follows. Firstly, it promotes learners’ debate activities. An amicable environment is formed where learners with limited background knowledge or passive attitudes can easily access debate topics, facilitating debate activities. Secondly, it enhances learners’ digital literacy through exploratory reading activities of digital materials. In particular, debate activities become more active during the process of sharing, selecting, and organizing information. Thirdly, it contributes to improving foreign language learners’ academic performance through digital literacy problem-solving. This study differs from previous studies in that it actively incorporates the changed learning environment into Korean language education and discusses in detail the process of foreign language learners creating the content of discussions by activating expanded background knowledge based on digital literacy.