From Chalkboards to Chatbots: A Scoping Review of English Language Teaching for Lower Secondary School Students in the Digital Transformation Era

Abstract

Lower secondary school students, typically aged 11 to 15, occupy a pedagogically distinctive position in English language teaching (ELT): old enough for abstract reasoning and self-directed technology use, yet still dependent on structured scaffolding and teacher mediation. As education systems worldwide, and particularly in Vietnam, pursue ambitious digital transformation agendas, a substantial body of research has examined technology-enhanced approaches to ELT—mobile-assisted language learning, gamification, immersive environments, and artificial intelligence tools—yet this literature disproportionately concentrates on higher education and adult learners. This paper presents a scoping review of peer-reviewed studies published mainly between 2014 and 2025 to synthesize what is known about technology-integrated English language teaching for lower secondary students specifically. The review identifies four recurring themes: the scaffolding demands of mobile-assisted learning for younger adolescents, the motivational but skill-narrow contribution of gamification, the emerging yet underexplored role of immersive and AI-based tools, and teacher digital competence as the central bottleneck constraining implementation. Evidence from Vietnam illustrates how national digital transformation policy can outpace classroom-level readiness. The review concludes that age-specific, longitudinally designed, and teacher-competence-sensitive research remains scarce, and proposes directions for future inquiry that integrate ELT pedagogy with broader digital-life-skills development for this age group.