







































English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

Vol. 5, No. 2, August 2022, pp. 129-142  

        https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6562         http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index          eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id  

Digital literacy readiness: Voices of Indonesian primary and 

secondary English teachers  

Bambang Widi Pratolo a,1*, Nur Fatimah b,2, Soviyah c,3, Ali Zuraina d,4 

a,b,c Universitas Ahmad Dahlan, Jl. Ringroad Selatan, kragilan, Tamanan, Bangutapan, Bantul, Yogyakarta, and 55166, Indonesia 
d Centre for Modern Languages, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26600 Pekan, Pahang, Malaysia 
1 bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id *, 2 nur.fatimah@pbi.uad.ac.id, 3 soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id, 3 zuraina@ump.edu.my    

* corresponding author 

 

A R T I C L E  I N F O 

 

ABST RACT   

 

 

Article history 

Received 06 June 2022 

Revised 03 August 2022 

Accepted 15 August 2022 

 The ways students learn nowadays have changed significantly since the Covid 
19 pandemic in 2019. Students today need different ways of teaching as they 
also have different learning styles. This study is intended to investigate how 
much the Indonesian primary and secondary English teachers are 
technologically literate, identify the challenges they face in teaching using 
technology and describe their hopes and expectation in their professional work 
as English teachers. Questionnaires in the form of google form were used to 
collect the data from all the participants, while interview was used to collect 
the data from the selected participants. The findings showed that most of the 
participants possessed high level of digital literacy, suggesting that they had the 
skills needed to help them teach online classes using the available online 
teaching platforms. They seemed to enjoy teaching online classes as they were 
capable of exploiting the online resources as the teaching materials, developing 
the available resources and even creating the digital teaching materials and 
using it in their online classes. The most serious problem they had was lack of 
IT knowledge in regard with the new online teaching platforms and internet 
connection. If they had to use the new online teaching platform, they had to 
learn it on their own, usually through YouTube and teach how to use it to their 
students. The classic problem, the internet connection, still occurred among the 
teachers and it caused problems in delivering the teaching materials and 
assessing the students’ work. This implies that the policy makers need to design 
professional development program which would help the Indonesia English 
teachers cope with their technological issues. 

 

This is an open-access article under the CC–BY-SA license. 

    

 
Keywords 

Digital Literacy 

Technologically Literate 

Professional Development 

 

 

 

 

How to Cite: Pratolo, B. W., Fatimah, N., Soviyah., & Zuraina, A. (2022). Digital literacy readiness: Voices of 
Indonesian primary and secondary English teachers. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 5(2), 
129-142. 

1. Introduction  

Recently there has been a spate of interest in the study of digital literacy among teachers and 
students as the impact of the development of information and communication technologies which 
increases massively in the 21 Century. According to Preston et al (2015a, 2015b) these phenomena of 
novel technologies refer to the use of a modern way called internet. Over the last years, the internet 
has been embedded in popular culture around the world among young and adults. Websites, YouTube, 
Wikipedia, and blogs are examples of internet-based outlets which people call for when they seek 
information. Email and various social media platforms have allowed instant communication among 
people across the world. 

In addition to instant communication, the social networking sites of Website 2.0 technologies such 
as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp have let people collaborate by sharing and editing 

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online content. In the industrial domain, the internet has also helped people distribute their products 
more efficiently and faster. Using online application such as Zalora, Shoppe, Tokopedia, Amazon, 
Alibaba, etc. people do the trading, shopping, buying and selling. These phenomena indicate clearly 
how internet has become the central aspect of most human lives around the world today. 

In the field of education, massive technology development also exists, especially in the process of 
teaching and learning held both in formal and informal classes. From the students’ side, the use of 
modern technologies becomes a must nowadays because these students are categorized as digital 
natives. They were born and grew up during this millennium era taking their life path together with 
technology almost in their everyday life. Therefore, conducting classes by making use of digital tools 
such as applications and websites in their learning process can help them understand the materials 
better.  

The ability of using tools of technology brings us to the concept of digital literacy. The term digital 
literacy was first defined as the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a 
wide range of sources when it is presented via computers (Hussein et al, 2017). Hsu (2019a, 2019b) 
says that digital literacy is the ability to effectively seek, navigate, analyse and make information about 
the using various forms of digital technology.  Meanwhile, media literacy is concerned with helping 
students develop an informed and critical understanding of the nature of mass media, the techniques 
used by them, and the impact of these techniques (Tan, Xiang, Zhang, Teng, & Yao, 2012). In this 
present study, the use of the term digital literacy refers to the multiplicity of literacies associated with 
the use of digital technology which is used by the teacher and students. 

In the context of education, one of the famous applications among teachers and students are 
Microsoft Office which includes Presentation PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel, etc. 
These forms of applications are highly used by both teachers and students. Another form of technology 
which is often used is website. This technological phenomenal development in the field of education 
is the issue most researchers conduct the studies. The use of digital literacy also concerns the ability 
to use digital learning platforms. A study that was conducted to identify the learning of English in the 
21st century found that the platforms could be employed to assist language learners in their writing 
activities (Ali, 2022). Specifically, its use was to gauge the students’ Language Learning Strategies 
(LLS) for instance metacognitive, cognitive, and social strategies classified (Hamad, 2017). This study 
aims to describe the level of the digital literacy among Indonesian primary and secondary English 
teachers. The findings of this study are expected to contribute to the management and policy making 
for Indonesian primary and secondary English teachers. In addition, it can be used as a reference for 
establishing and planning proper teacher professional development program especially related to 
information and communication technology. 

Digital literacy is not a new strategy for a student to gain the information and knowledge needed 
(Saubari & Baharuddin, 2016). The term digital literacy was first introduced by Gilster in the late 
1990s. He said that it is the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide 
range of sources when it is presented via computers (Spante et al., 2018; Alkali & Amichai-
Hamburger, 2004). The capability to use the technology to allow us to right to use the materials is a 
key aspect of digital literacy. As a starting point, the obvious aspect of digital literacy is an internet. 
In simple terms, digital literacy is the ability to properly use and evaluate digital resources, tools and 
services and apply it to their lifelong learning process (Falloon, 2020; Bawden, 2008). 

Pratolo and Solikhati (2021) investigated teachers’ attitude towards digital literacy in EFL 
classroom. Their study endeavored to find out how the digital literacy was implemented in their 
English classes, to determine teachers’ attitude in implementing the digital literacy, to scrutinize the 
challenges and the actions they took to cope with them. They found that computer and smartphone 
were the used the most often search for digital information. The teachers exhibited positive attitudes 
in the use of digital literacy for English teaching. They used syllabus as a major consideration, 
developed effective teaching, implemented multiple literacy and improved the four language skills. 
They also discovered lack of technology, lack of time and limited budget were acknowledged as 
hindrances in digital literacy implementation. To cope with these issues, the teachers in their study 
developed an early planning and support plan. 

Ng (2012) explored the knowledge about educational technologies of a group of undergraduate 
students studying the course Introduction to eLearning at a university in Australia and how they 



ISSN 2621-6485 English Language Teaching Educational Journal 131 
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adopted unfamiliar technologies into their learning. The study explores the 'digital nativeness' of these 
students by investigating their degree of digital literacy and the ease with which they learn to make 
use of unfamiliar technologies. In her study, she employed mix method with pre-service teachers as 
the participants. She identified the technologies that should be understood by the students who would 
conduct a blended-learning mode such as for concept-mapping software, Prezi (presentation 
software), Hot Potatoes or SurveyMonkey software (for quiz creation) and VoiceThread and 
Wikispaces as collaborative platforms to respectively upload the students’ digital stories and construct 
a collaborative WebQuest.   

Phuapan, Viriyavejakul and Pimdee (2016) conducted a similar study which was held among 
students in nine universities in Thailand. In their study, they used digital competences from Bloom 
Taxonomy which refers to the technologies to answer their research questions. With a massive 
sampling of 400 undergraduate students as their participants, they sought to determine which digital 
literacy skills were most important in using digital technology, communications tools, and/or networks 
to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create and communicate information in order to function in a 
knowledge society. 

Alamsyah (2017)  investigated the patterns of digital literacy among Sriwijaya University lecturers 
and its contribution to the implementation of eLearning. Employing a mixed method involving 30 
lecturer participants and used offline and online questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and secondary 
data collection, he found that digital literacy competence among the lecturers was in a high position. 
This situation is the initial capital for the implementation of e-learning at the university. However, this 
situation has not contributed to the implementation of e-learning because the lecturers were not willing 
to adapt to the e-learning environment system and the policy makers had not been intervening several 
factors that contributed to e-learning implementation at the university level. 

We identified a methodological gap in terms of the participants involved in the previous studies. 
Say for example, Pratolo and Solikhati (2021) involved junior high school teachers only as their 
research participants, while Alamsyah (2017) focused his study on the lecturers. Different from these 
two studies, Ng (2012) and Phuapan et.al. (2016) recruited undergraduate students as their informants. 
None of these studies looked into what the primary English teachers said about their readiness of 
digital technology. By nature, different participants with different background will offer different 
result. This present study is trying to fill in the gap by involving primary and secondary English 
teachers to speak out their voices and is conducted to answer the following research questions: (1) 
How is the digital literacy level of the Indonesian primary and secondary English teachers? (2) What 
kinds of technology forms do they use? (3) Why do they use such applications in their everyday 
teaching? (4) What kinds of problems do they face in using technology in their online teaching?  

2. Method 

The present study adopted a mixed methods approach as outlined by Creswell (2012) to investigate 
the digital literacy of Indonesian primary and secondary English teachers. A total of 36 Indonesian 
English teachers from across the country participated in the study. The data was collected through the 
use of both closed and open questionnaires, modified from the work of Son, Park, and Park (2017). 
The questionnaire consisted of six sections, including demographic information, perceptions and 
experiences with using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in teaching, capability 
in using applications for teaching, frequency of using websites to support teaching, frequency of 
utilizing the services provided by these websites, and open questions about the use of applications to 
improve language skills and teaching. To help the participants be well informed with the questions 
and to avoid misunderstandings, the questionnaire was translated into Indonesian. The invitations 
were sent through WhatsApp messages along with the Google form link to the potential EFL teacher 
participants. Some of them responded quickly, some other filled up the form late. Therefore, by the 
time the data were analyzed, the recorded number of the participants was thirty-six. For their 
confidentiality purposes, none of their real names was used in any part of this study report. The data 
was analyzed using theme-based coding and quantified using percentages. The results were used to 
describe the digital literacy of the participating English teachers and to examine the challenges they 
faced in using digital technology for teaching performance. 



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3. Findings and Discussion 

The process of collecting the research data was carried out using Google Form. The Google form 
was distributed to the targeted participants mainly through WhatsApp. Meanwhile, the interview was 
done via telephone call.  Regarding the research instruments, to obtain the instruments’ validity and 
reliability, in addition to the member checking techniques, we also conducted an intensive discussion 
with them. Table 1 depicts the blueprint of the instrument: 

Table 1.  The blueprint of the research instrument 

Category 
Item 

Quantity 

Respondents’ identity  9 

Digital literacy  18  

Capability in working with application  5 

Frequency in using websites and applications 16 

Frequency in using web services  11 

Total 59 

 

3.1 Research Participants’ Demographics 

Based on the data collected, as shown in the chart below, there were a total of 56 teachers who 
became the participants of the research. These participants comprised of 20 teachers of primary school 
(36%) and 36 teachers of junior high school (64%).   

 

 

Fig. 1.  Demographic 

 

Meanwhile, seen from the age group category, among the participants, 8.9 percent were 51 years 
of age and above, 26% were within 41 and 50 years old, 41.1% aged between 31 to 40 years old, 
19.6% were within the range of 25-30 years of age and 3.6% were under 25. Based on the demographic 
data, the participants within the range of 31 and 40 years of age ranked the first, followed by those 
falling in the range of 41 up to 50 years old. The least percentage was those of under 25 years of age 
with the percentage of 3.6%. The chart below depicts the spread of the age group among the 
participants.  

 



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Fig. 2.  Group of Age 

Regarding the participants’ teaching experience or duration of time serving as teachers, 
participants with more than 20 years of teaching experience ranked first reaching 25% and then 
followed by participants with teaching experience between 0-5 years who got the percentage score of 
22%. Meanwhile groups of participants with teaching experience of 6-10 and 11-15 years ranked third 
each occupying 21%. The least rank was the group of participants with 15 to 20 years of teaching 
experience who gathered the percentage score of 11%.  

 

 

Fig. 3.  Year of Experience 

 

3.2 Research Findings 

1) Research Question 1: Participants’ digital literacy level 

To know the level of the participants’ digital literacy, after the data were collected, they were 
analyzed quantitatively first. This functions to determine the mean of each aspect researched. Next, 
categorization was made to help us categorize the participants’ digital literacy level as shown in Table 
2.  

Table 2.  Categorization of the digital literacy level 

Mean Category 

55 - 72 Very high 

37 - 54 High 

19 - 36 Medium 

18 Low 



134 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

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The results of the data analysis are presented through the following chart:    

                            

 

Fig. 4.  Participants’ digital literacy level 

Referring to the data displayed on Figure 4, it is found out that the level of digital literacy among 
the participants, in general, is in high category. This is based on the value of the mean which reached 
score of 44.27. Zooming into the table more closely, though, it is interesting to notice that among all 
items asked, the highest score the participants gave was item no 3 stating that ICT makes the process 
of teaching and learning more interesting. For this item, majority of the participants gave such a high 
score that it could reach the mean of 51.5. They comprised of 39 participants who chose strongly 
agree, 16 participants chose agree, and only 1 single participant chose somewhat disagree. On the 
contrary, for item number 10 stating “I own the technical skills I need to work with ICT for learning 
and to create artifacts (e.g. wiki, blog) that demonstrate my understanding of what I have 
learnt/mastered”, the participants gave the least score as it only reached 33.75 as its mean. For this 
item, majority of the participants chose somewhat disagree (30 participants), 17 participants chose 
agree, and only 5 participants chose strongly agree. Interestingly, there were 4 respondents who chose 
disagree.   

2) Research Question 2: Kinds of technology forms the participants use 

To reveal the data of the kinds of technology forms the participants use, there were three main 
question categories given to them. They were questions related to capability in working with learning 
applications, frequency of using learning website/applications, and frequency in using web services. 

a) Capability in working with learning applications  

In terms of participants’ capability in working with application, there were five questions asked 
under this category. These five questions referred to the idea of how the participants perceived 
themselves regarding their capability in working with various learning applications on internet. 
Specifically, these five questions were related to the capability in operating some specific application 
categories such as word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, video editing, and photo editing.  

Based on the data collected, it was found out that, in general, the participants perceived themselves 
to be in "high (capable)" category with the average mean score reaching 40.15. Meanwhile, when 
viewed more closely, it appears that among the five learning application categories asked, the 
participants were most confident with application category number three i.e., presentation (power 
point presentation, keynote) and least confident with application category number four i.e., video 
editing (iMovie, Movie maker) with the average mean score of 45.25 and 32.75 respectively.   

  



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b) Frequency of using learning website/applications 

 

Fig. 5.  Frequency of using website/applications 

Figure 5 shows the results of the data analysis regarding the types of applications used by 
participants in the learning processes they have conducted. Among 16 applications asked, the top three 
most used applications chosen by the participants were You tube, Google Classroom, and Zoom with 
average mean score of 50.5, 48 and 44.75 respectively. Meanwhile, the least used application was 
Cousera as it only reached the average mean score of 16.75.   

c) Frequency in using web services  

 

 

Fig. 6.  Frequency of using website services  

Figure 6 provides information related to data about the services available on websites/applications 
that the participants often used. Under this category, there were 11 questions asked about the website 
services which were most frequently used by the participants in their daily teaching practices. Among 
these 11 questions, question number two topped the survey with the average mean score reached 
47.25. Most participants stated that they most often accessed websites such as online dictionaries and 
content specific websites as they considered these types of websites helped them in finding out 
references and contents for their classes. The second most accessed website type was the one which 



136 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

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was related to social media such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter, etc. with the mean score of 46.5. 
The participants said that they often used these kinds of social media for their teaching.   

3) Question 3: Reasons of using applications for academic purposes 

In regards to the research question 3, there were four issues found. They comprised the reasons for 
using the application for learning English, the reasons for using the applications for teaching, the 
language skills and the language teaching skills developed while using the applications.  

When asked the questions about the reasons the participants had in using the application for 
learning and improving their English, 62.69% of the participants interviewed declared that the 
applications were user friendly. Furthermore, they stated that they did not have any difficulties in 
using them. In other words, the applications were easy-to-use applications. Meanwhile, 13.23% of the 
participants answered that the application provided them with sufficient facilities for them to use for 
teaching. For that, they said that they could post the pdf material, audio and audiovisual material quite 
easily. The rest 24.48% of the participants trusted the that application were the safe ones.  

For the issue related to the reasons why the participants used the applications for teaching, 56% of 
the participants said that that the applications were easy to use and they did not have significant 
problems in using them for teaching. Meanwhile, 24% of the participants said that the applications 
had supporting facilities to help them teach online. This reason was supported by the other 20% of the 
participants who agreed that the applications provided them with the resources needed in teaching. 
They further said that having these applications in hand, they did not have to develop their own 
teaching material. 

In dealing with the language skills developed during the use of the internet applications, 32.26% 
participants said that their listening skill improved significantly. Furthermore, 27.96% participants 
agreed that the use of applications could improve their reading skill and 20.43% participants believed 
that the use of applications could improve their speaking ability. Meanwhile 19.35% participants 
conceived that by using the applications, their writing ability would improve. 

In regard to the teaching skills developed during the use of the application, 52.28% participants 
believed that their material management skill improved and 27.49% of them cerebrated that their skill 
in learning and teaching method improved. Meanwhile, the total of 8.33% participants agreed that 
their skill in class management developed well during the use of the application and 7.94% participants 
believed that all their teaching skills improved well by using the application. Surprisingly, there’s only 
3.96% conceived that their language mastery improved because of the applications use. 

4) Research Question 4: Problems in using technology 

In terms of weaknesses of the applications, the participants identified such weaknesses of the 
applications they used as: quota of data provided (28.57%), advertisement distraction (4.76%), too 
many resources to select (11.90%), need of parental and teacher’s guide (26.19%), availability of 
learning facility on the application (9.52%), and internet signal or connection (19.05%). 

As the research applied the interview technique in order to dig out more deeply about the issue, 
the following sub sections will discuss the findings of it. In regards to the problems faced by the 
participants when making use of the applications, there were three main problems found out i.e., lack 
of IT knowledge and facility, cellphone management, and problems with new applications. 

a) Lack of IT knowledge and facility 

Among the participants, lack of IT knowledge and facility became one of the prominent problems 
in using applications. One of the participants said that he did not have enough knowledge of the 
information technology and there’s lack of facility in his mobile phone and laptop and the problem 
with the internet connection as well. This situation prevented him to join a teacher professional 
development upgrading program and workshops, including the one which was aimed at improving the 
teachers’ capacity in using the IT. 

...lack of knowledge on IT and lack of facility, for example the capacity of the cell phone or laptop that 
needs to be upgraded. Another problem emerges if we have to do our activity from home which is without 
wi-fi. There is unstable connection here, too. We have never joined workshops related to the use of 
application in teaching our students… 



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...I never join workshop on using application to teach. Workshop where teachers can learn how to use 
applications to teach are needed. Also, it is necessary to have a sharing forum among teachers about what 
application feasible to teachers and students... 

Moreover, he explained that due to his insufficient knowledge on IT and capacity of his cellphone, 
he preferred using the teaching materials available on YouTube to developing the materials on his 
own. 

...I prefer using videos from YouTube because of my time limitation as a teacher and facility or memory of 
my cellphone. I don’t make my own video, either. I have to spend lots of time to take the picture and audio, 
and also for editing it. If my students have problems in pronunciation, I ask them to send me a personal 
message, and to respond to it, I send them a voice note to give an example of how to say words or sentences. 

One of the participants said that the use of online teaching application will only benefit the teacher 
who is familiar with the application, but the students will not get any benefit from it because they are 
not familiar with the platform. This is due to the fact that the application is only installed in the 
teacher’s laptop. 

A relatively new application may result in teaching and learning problems. Only the teacher knows how 
to use it, the students have not yet been familiar with it, or the application is only installed in the teacher’s 
laptop. I usually make a backup material or manual of the material from the application. This is for face-
to-face meeting in my class...  

b) Cellphone use management 

In terms of the cellphone management issue, it arises because of the fact that as children/students 
are not supposed to have their own cellphones, they depend on their parents to access their assignments 
from their teachers. If any of their parents always stay at home and do not have to go out to work, it 
will not be a big deal. But if both of the parents have to work, they will have to wait until their parents 
get home from work to learn the materials or do the assignments.  

For online learning, we use two applications i.e., WhatsApp and Gform. There is a problem when the 
students share the cell phone with other family members. Sometimes when the parents arrived home, they 
forgot to tell their child. Further, the technical problem also occurs when the connection is not stable. 

Using WhatsApp application, there often many messages posted so that some students often miss certain 
tasks. As a teacher, I remind them about the assignment to accomplish. I understand that the online 
learning environment or atmosphere is quite different from learning in the classroom. Monitoring and 
guidance are much more needed here. 

We use user friendly applications, word for the materials and ppt including the video or voice note to 
explain the materials. The exercises are taken for the textbook. This is to anticipate the problems 

c) Problem with new application  

Problems with new applications became another kind of problem faced by participants when using 
internet applications. For common applications which are popular among teacher and students, most 
of the teachers do not have any problem. The problem emerges when they have to use a new 
application. It is not only that they have to learn on their own, they have to teach their students on how 
to use the application too.  

Problems in online learning especially exists with relatively new applications...this does not happen on the 
use of google form, g classroom, zoom, quizzes. For the relatively new or unfamiliar one, the teacher needs 
to train the students to be familiar and able to use the learning application. A complicated application 
especially for ‘senior’ teachers is also a problem, there must be a workshop.  

In my opinion, complicated here can be the activity that requires the teachers to install before using the 
application in the mobile phone or laptop, or complexity in inputting the data or materials in the 
application, or the data cannot be copied and pasted from word document to the application used. Another 
case is on the application using certain codes. 

 The workshop is to anticipate or to overcome students’ boredom and it is to drive students’ motivation to 
learn online. 

Not all of us-the teacher are able to use the application, for example G-meet. But we do our best to do that, 
we learn from tutorials from YouTube.  

This interview excerpt is very interesting. It was found not all teachers in her school was familiar 
with the online teaching platforms such as G-meet. But this pandemic situation could motivate them 



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to learn on their own, such as from you tube. It has proved that this pandemic forced them to be an 
independent learner in the use of online teaching platform. 

3.3 Discussion 

The findings of this study shows that the participating primary and secondary English teachers 
perceive that they are quite digitally literate as the average score reaches the category of "high" level. 
This result sparks some intriguing points to discuss further. From the positive side, this result is 
acceptable and relevant especially when it is related to the condition when this research was carried 
out i.e., during the Covid19 pandemic which had made all learning processes be conducted online. 
This is also the case with the participants in this study. Practically, due to the pandemic, these 
participants have been implementing online learning since the beginning of 2020. It means since then 
they have been working with technology intensively and using it in their teaching and learning process. 
Since then, they have been demanded to be able to adapt quickly to the existing situation. As a result, 
they learned quickly from any possible sources and implemented the teaching and learning process 
online. Long story short, online learning due to covid19 pandemic has forced teachers, including the 
participants in this study, to make themselves be familiar with technology and be more competent in 
using it as well. In fact, the use of online distance learning (ODL) is mushrooming as the effect of the 
pandemic. Zuraina et al. (2022) conducted a study in the use of Telegram as the alternative to support 
learning when the disease was widespread. The study found that its use promoted ease in teaching and 
learning, enhance communication between students-teachers by providing prompt responses, and be 
used to share information between students and teachers. The researchers concluded that Telegram as 
an ODL was very relevant during the crisis.  

Furthermore, in terms of the form and type of technology the participants used, they have made 
their own milestone with their digital literacy development process during this pandemic. Starting 
from using WhatsApp more frequently and for teaching, they now, slowly but surely, have been moved 
to a higher level by applying more complex applications such as YouTube, Google Classroom, Zoom, 
Quizizz and some other types of online learning platform. Meanwhile, in terms of content, they also 
experienced a kind of quantum leaping regarding the use of educational technology. Searching and 
browsing various learning materials through internet, compiling them and packing them in media that 
are fully supported by technology, such as video, audio, or power point presentation and then 
presenting them in online settings via Google Classroom, YouTube channel, LMS (Learning Mobile 
System), etc. are things that become very close to their lives and they do it daily in their classrooms. 
Of course, all these processes of learning, adapting, adopting and developing technology in their daily 
teaching practices have made them be more digitally literate and more confident in working with 
technology, and thus made them perceive that they have high level of digital literacy hierarchy.  

However, seen from a different perspective, the result of the study rings a bell to a need of more 
discussions and further research in the field. As part of the questionnaire which asks about participants' 
digital literacy is based on the participants’ personal perception plus due to the fact that perception is 
subjective in nature, the result this research collects may be influenced by several factors from the 
participants themselves. Personal characteristics might possibly affect perception the most such as a 
person's attitudes, personality, motives, interests, past experiences, and expectations. Therefore, 
additional research of the same topic but different research method is needed in order to balance the 
information.  

The study also reveals that the top three most used applications chosen by the participants were 
You tube, Google Classroom, and Zoom. This result is in line with the findings of other researches in 
the field (see for example Tamim, 2013; Bardaki, 2019; Kabooha & Elyas, 2018). One of the factors 
is the fact that YouTube is very popular among teachers, including the participants in this study. One 
of the indicators is that there have been many researchers in the field of ELT and learning media who 
have conducted researches on the use of YouTube in education, including English education. Many 
studies have confirmed that teachers use You Tube quite often to support their daily teaching needs 
(Tamim, 2013; Bardaki, 2019; Kabooha & Elyas, 2018). Regarding the advantages of using YouTube, 
in general, it is an accepted fact that the use of YouTube can improve students’ involvement and 
participation in the classroom and improve their learning strategies (Callow & Zammit, 2012). 
Furthermore, the use of YouTube videos is greatly effective especially for introductory courses as it 
can facilitate difficult concepts, and attract the attention of weak students as well as visual and special 
students (Kabooha, & Elyas, 2015; 2018; Heriyanto, 2015).  



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In addition, YouTube is a multidimensional resource that offers videos in all fields of knowledge 
that can be accessed effortlessly (Kabooha & Elyas, 2018). As videos on YouTube are limited in 
length, this makes them suitable for the tight classroom’s time. Studies have also examined the effect 
of YouTube on autonomous learning (Hafner & Miller, 2011). Berk (2009) argues that the verbal and 
visual elements provided by the online video clips match the idiosyncrasies of the Net Generation of 
learners and address their different learning styles.  

This study has found that in regard with the use of application for learning most of the participants 
considered the applications were user-friendly. It suggests that most of the teachers have high level of 
digital literacy as reflected in their ability to use the digital technologies (Martin’s, 2005; Ng, 2012). 
This is very important in making the online teaching successful. With the skill of using digital 
technologies, the teachers can create, develop or select the materials suitable and appropriate with the 
level of the students. They will ensure that the materials are within the students’ reach to learn. This 
will help the students acquire the content of the subject more easily. In other word, the teachers help 
prepare the students to face a globalized and multilingual world (Godwin-Jones, 2016). Nevertheless, 
teachers are required to employ various techniques in class to boost motivation, in particular intrinsic 
motivation, among students. In the use of Canva; an online graphic design tool, Ali (2022) found the 
infographics enabled language learners to be creative due to the interesting features that are available 
in the application. Therefore, teachers should not be teaching writing by merely asking students to 
write sentences. Yet, teachers could also ask their students to use infographics to express their thoughts 
and ideas. 

The most serious problem faced by the teachers is their IT knowledge and the facility in their 
communication devices, such as mobile phone. Their skill in using the online teaching platforms is 
crucial and reflect the level of digital literacy of the teachers (see Godwin-Jones, 2016; Martin’s, 2005; 
Ng, 2012). This finding also shows that the IT facility of the teachers cannot guarantee the 
effectiveness of the online teaching due to the internet connection, which is sometimes interrupted 
and down. This confirms the finding of the study conducted by Huerta and Sandoval-Almazán (2016). 

4. Conclusion 

Covid-19 pandemic has forced the policy makers to close all the schools and apply work from 
home for all teachers. This affects the way how the students learn. Therefore, the students have to 
learn also from home. The online teaching is not an option anymore, it is mandatory due to the school 
closure. To make this online teaching and learning process run effectively and successful, the teachers 
have to be digital literate. This study was implemented, among others, was to assess how digital 
literate the Indonesian Primary and Secondary school teachers were. This finding could be used as a 
consideration for the policy makers to make rules and regulations related to online teaching and 
learning process Indonesian school system. 

In general, the level of digital literacy of the teachers is in high category, suggesting that the 
teachers know very well how to use the online teaching application or platforms without any problems. 
They know how to prepare and or select the material from online resources, deliver it through the 
application to the students, assess and give feedback to the students, work etc. In term of the capability 
in working with the learning application, it was found that most of the participants capable, suggesting 
that they did not have any issues with the complexity of the application. They knew all the icons and 
their functions very well. This suggests that they could maximize the use of the application by the 
facilities provided. This affects the effectiveness and success of online teaching during the pandemic. 

Among the available online learning resources and applications, YouTube was still the most 
frequently accessed as the learning resource. It is understandable as YouTube provides almost 
everything including the teaching and learning resources for all subject matters in the forms of 
interesting videos. Meanwhile, Google Classroom was the most favorite application for teaching, 
followed by Zoom. These two applications are user friendly and the ways how to use them are just so 
simple. They also provide upload and download facility which they can use for sharing and using the 
learning resources. Among the online resources available in the websites, online dictionary is the most 
popular among the teachers, followed by content specific websites. The online dictionary suggests 
more complete translation and examples of how words are used in sentences. This is so helpful for the 
teachers. The content specific websites such as British Council is very rich and so resourceful not only 



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for teachers but also for students. Among the social media, Facebook was still the champion, followed 
by Instagram and twitter. This suggest that teachers still need media to socialize themselves and at the 
same time search for teaching resources in those social media platforms. In terms of the problems, 
most of the teachers encountered issues with the lack of IT knowledge and facility including their 
unfamiliarity with the online learning platforms and internet connection and cell phone availability. 
These three issues became the major problems faced by primary English teachers in teaching online 
classes.  

 

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