Online classes and digital competence in Taiwanese Spanish students during the COVID-19 pandemic

The closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced the continuation of education through online classes around the world. This event represented an unprecedented socio-educational milestone. Faced with this situation, a study is carried out in Taiwanese students of Spanish that investigates the impact of face-to-face and online classes on their process of acquiring sociolinguistic competencies. Second, it explores the level of digital competence that these students perceive from themselves and their teachers. A quantitative methodology was used, based on two questionnaires, distributed to a sample of 120 Taiwanese students of Spanish. The main findings showed marked significant differences in the assessment of both types of class and notable deficiencies in the acquisition of digital competence in students and teachers. The relevance of the research has been to establish a descriptive reference line, from which to build future experimental studies.