Ágota and Sándor said that they frequently learned from their instructors when they use certain technologies in the classroom, such as a reference website, a quiz tool, or a presentation tool. Sándor added that he had very good experiences with one of his teachers who used Google Spreadsheets as interactive syllabi and Google Documents for collecting questions based on home materials. Léna learnt about Kahoot!, a quiz tool from one of her instructors. Andrea had a transversal (i.e., general, not linked to any of her teacher education majors) ICT class in which their task was to look for websites that could be used for teaching, and post about them on a forum created for the classroom. Then, they had to review and discuss other people’s website recommendations. Diána added that she participated in a special, transversal Moodle-based online class called Adventure IT, where she encountered learner-centric teaching support websites such as LearningApps.org. Zsóka mentioned learning about Google Forms as a quiz tool when one of her English language development course teachers prepared mock vocabulary tests with the help of Google Forms, where students had the opportunity to pre-test themselves before the actual vocabulary tests without any consequences.

At Tímea’s university, an EFL methodology teacher always incorporated ICT into the teaching methodology classes, while other teachers typically used PPTs to accompany their lectures. Iván had a positive experience with methodology classes, too because technology was incorporated into these classes by their teachers. Several participants mentioned that EFL-related methodology subject teachers made use of educational technology much more than teachers of their other majors, where often there was no inclusion whatsoever (said Andrea, Klára, Léna, András and Olga). Ágota was the only participant who mentioned that technology was an integrated part of her second major, Teacher of Biology. While she attended the same university as Iván, his second major was Teacher of IT, thus technology was evidently part of his second major’s methodology courses. Olga, whose other major was Teacher of Russian as a FL, said that she even had to take care of purchasing special equipment, a Russian character set keyboard, and this purchase was preceded by seeking help from elder students in the programme because their teachers did not refer them to any purchase options.

The participants mentioned that they would prefer it if their universities incorporated ICT into more subject-related courses (Tímea, Léna, Olga, András). Tímea said, “I think it would be a good idea to have a basic [transversal] ICT course, […] and on top of that, it should also be incorporated into teaching methodology classes […] that could deal with how to conduct online lessons”. András recalled a class where he learnt about technologies, but he said, “I think these classes were less optimal, we were shown apps and websites we had already been familiar with […] which resulted in taking advantage of the possibility that we could use our phones in the classroom”. Iván, whose second major is Teacher of IT, added that it would be useful to address the specific technologies available in the classroom because “sometimes people cannot solve the problem when they connect a projector and a computer and the computer screen goes blank without mirroring the projected image, they have no clue what to do and this causes anxiety […] they are afraid of bringing any technology in the classes”. He said that these instances could be prevented by familiarising people with the available technology, offering IT support and having more practical IT classes, e.g., as part of secondary education.

 

The participants mentioned that their teachers used Quizlet (https://quizlet.com/) to support student learning (Zsóka, Tímea, Andrea, Léna, Diána, Ágota). Quizlet is a well-known website for creating word cards digitally; one side of the card can contain a word, a phrase or even a historical date, and the users can decide what to place on the other side, e.g., a definition, an image, or a translation. As Quizlet is immensely popular with learners and is being developed constantly, it now offers several practice activities with the word sets such as pairing, translation or even mock tests. Tímea and Andrea mentioned that the word sets can be shared with peers and timed practice can be motivational for those who like this kind of gamification. Ágota mentioned the instructional use of Brainspace (https://brainspace.revealdata.com/), an online analytical tool for vocabulary learning purposes, which makes it possible to organise, e.g., vocabulary in clusters, resulting in the creation of visually appealing thematic word lists.

Some participants observed that their teachers’ technological repertoire largely depended on how much importance they attached to technology use (Tímea, Ágota, Iván). Tímea mentioned one of her instructors she had two EFL methodological course with, where she learnt about LearningApps (https://learningapps.org/), a collection of useful online tools that could be selected to accompany teaching; and PosterMyWall (https://www.postermywall.com/) a data visualisation website where they created infographics and posters connected to the materials of the class. Iván mentioned making use of LearningApps too, but he recalled four or five EFL teaching methodological courses of which technology was an integrated part of. He claimed to have learned a lot and he was motivated by his methodology professor’s dedication, he says “the material was delivered by the instructor through using the [digital] methods she was promoting, then everyone had to mention some more examples [of online tools], we were put in groups and had to carry out a project about the examples we came up with”.

Zsóka and Ágota recalled their teachers using Kahoot! (https://kahoot.com/), a competitive online interactive quizzing website where questions are projected, and the answers have to be selected on students’ smart devices. Zsóka added that in one of her culture-related classes, they sometimes had to watch YouTube videos instead of reading materials, and one of her teachers once used Mentimeter (https://www.mentimeter.com/), an online slide tool, where the presentation can be followed on the smart devices of the audience members and some slides (three in the free and unlimited in the subscribed version) can contain questions to the audience to interactively engage them throughout the talk. In some language development classes, Tímea and Olga sometimes had to listen to TED Talks (https://www.ted.com/), short motivational speeches from subject experts, which were then discussed in the classroom.

Flóra recalled using a special website as part of an EFL teaching methodology class that dealt with teaching EFL to special needs children. Their instructor made frequent use of the website called Screenager (http://screenager.hu), which is somewhat similar to LearningApps, and its main advantage is the possibility of designing several types of activities that fits the instructors’ and learners’ needs (e.g., determining the type, length and the text-image ratio of teaching materials). A further advantage of Screenager is that it offers a digital teaching and learning environment, thus it also functions and an LMS.

 

While subject-specific courses that familiarise students with digital skills and knowledge on what and how to include in their future teaching practices are seen most effective, even those cannot fully ensure that students will be self-driven users of educational technologies in the future (Tondeur et al., 2016). As Liu (2009, p. 105) put it, a “fearless attitude” towards experimenting with technologies should be adopted, but the reality of having to teach many classes can contribute to resorting to more traditional instructional methods (Tondeur et al., 2016). It seems that there are different optimal levels of technology inclusion in the instruction of English majors / EFL teacher education majors, and it is best if several subjects include technologies with an optimal development of more than one digital competences; for instance, transversal ICT courses could develop content creation and ICT safety competences, but methodological classes are more efficient if they target prospective teachers’ attitudes and TPACK skills.