Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment

Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment
Author: Miranda Hamilton
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-04-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1441153683

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Digitalised learning with its promise of autonomy, enhanced learner choice, independence and freedom, is an intuitive and appealing construct but closer examination reveals it to be a rather simplistic proposition, raising the following questions. -What do we mean by autonomy? -What are we implying about the role of the teacher, the classroom, and interaction between learners? -What do we understand about the impact of technology on the ecology of the learning environment? This book describes the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by a group of advanced English language learners in Mexico, comparing what students thought and what they did in response to the technology. The theoretical aim of the book is to work towards the construction of a theory of the development of autonomy and virtual learning in an EFL context. Enhanced understanding about the relationship between autonomy and technology has the potential to inform academics, software designers, materials writers, teacher educators, and teachers and to help learners in their quest to acquire a foreign language.

Language, Autonomy and the New Learning Environments

Language, Autonomy and the New Learning Environments
Author: Douglas Allford
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2007
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9783039105670

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The emergence of new learning environments, technological and institutional, implies a need for language understanding and autonomous learning. What do they mean? Why are they necessary? How do they interrelate? This book looks at these questions. The authors consider mother tongue and second/foreign language education in relation to 'language understanding', which includes formal knowledge and an ability to use language communicatively, and should cover the 'new' literacies. Autonomous language learning has been interpreted in various ways, and setting language understanding as a goal allows some of these (such as 'training' models) to be challenged and others endorsed. Some implications of the information society for education are considered. Learning increasingly takes place outside educational establishments, and the authors examine changes from face-to-face teacher-student interaction to mixed-mode and distance learning. The new environments create new possibilities, such as knowledge construction through computer-mediated interaction and learner autonomy in online networks, and these are explored. Throughout the book, the centrality of the teacher's role is affirmed, as educator and guide on autonomous second/foreign language programmes, and as a moderator of online discussions and a designer of online materials.

Brave New Digital Classroom, Second Edition

Brave New Digital Classroom, Second Edition
Author: Robert J. Blake
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2013-03-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1589019768

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Brave New Digital Classroom examines the most effective ways to utilize technology in language learning. The author deftly interweaves the latest results of pedagogical research with descriptions of the most successful computer-assisted language learning (CALL) projects to show how to implement technology in the foreign-language curriculum to assist the second language acquisition process. This fully updated second edition includes new chapters on the latest electronic resources, including gaming and social media, and discusses the realities and potential of distance learning for second language acquisition. The author examines the web, CALL applications, and computer-mediated communication (CMC), and suggests how the new technologically assisted curriculum will work for the foreign-language curriculum. Rather than advocating new technologies as a replacement for activities that can be done equally well with traditional processes, the author envisions a radical change as teachers rethink their strategies and develop their competence in the effective use of technology in language teaching and learning. Directed at all language teachers, from the elementary school to postsecondary levels, the book is ideal for graduate-level courses on second language pedagogy. It also serves as an invaluable reference for experienced researchers, CALL developers, department chairs, and administrators.

Space, Place and Autonomy in Language Learning

Space, Place and Autonomy in Language Learning
Author: Garold Murray
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2017-11-03
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317220897

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This book explores theories of space and place in relation to autonomy in language learning. Encompassing a wide range of linguistically and culturally diverse learning contexts, this edited collection brings together research papers from academics working in fourteen countries. In their studies, these researchers examine physical, virtual and metaphorical learning spaces from a wide range of theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives (semiotic, ecological, complexity, human geography, linguistic landscapes, mediated discourse analysis, sociocultural, constructivist and social constructivist) and methodological approaches. The book traces its origins to the first-ever symposium on space, place and autonomy, which was held at the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) 2014 World Congress in Brisbane. The final chapter, which presents a thematic analysis of the papers in this volume, discusses the implications for theory development, further enquiry, and pedagogical practice.

Fostering Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Environments With Contemporary Technologies

Fostering Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Environments With Contemporary Technologies
Author: Çetin Köro?lu, Zeynep
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2023-12-29
Genre: Education
ISBN:

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With so many new technologies becoming available to language educators today, it can seem overwhelming and many who are eager to implement these advancements into their classrooms may not know where to start. Fostering Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Environments With Contemporary Technologies emerges as an essential guide book for educators, scholars, and policymakers navigating the intricacies of modern language pedagogy. Within these pages, the journey begins by acknowledging the digital revolution that has given rise to a generation of 'digital natives'. Drawing from John Dewey's timeless wisdom, the book echoes the urgency to equip today's learners with the tools of tomorrow. By exploring the metaverse, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence, it unravels a tapestry of innovative possibilities. Through vivid exemplars, this volume elucidates how these cutting-edge technologies can seamlessly integrate into the traditional classroom or the virtual learning space. Designed for students, professionals, educators, and scholars entrenched in foreign language education, it stands as a definitive resource. Unveiling a spectrum of topics, including artificial intelligence-augmented learning for acquiring speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills. It also delves into the role of augmented reality in redefining language classrooms and vocabulary acquisition, and the metaverse is unveiled as a realm of untapped potential, and learner autonomy within tech-infused classrooms becomes a focal point. It extends its embrace to encompass program designers, administrators, and practitioners, unraveling the tapestry of language instruction, learning, and assessment.

Language Education in Digital Spaces: Perspectives on Autonomy and Interaction

Language Education in Digital Spaces: Perspectives on Autonomy and Interaction
Author: Carolin Fuchs
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2021-09-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030749584

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This book brings together contributions on learner autonomy from a myriad of contexts to advance our understanding of what autonomous language learning looks like with digital tools, and how this understanding is shaped by and can shape different socio-institutional, curricular, and instructional support. To this end, the individual contributions in the book highlight practice-oriented, empirically-based research on technology-mediated learner autonomy and its pedagogical implications. They address how technology can support learner autonomy as process by leveraging the affordances available in social media, virtual exchange, self-access, or learning in the wild (Hutchins, 1995). The rapid evolution and adoption of technology in all aspects of our lives has pushed issues related to learner and teacher autonomy centre stage in the language education landscape. This book tackles emergent challenges from different perspectives and diverse learning ecologies with a focus on social and educational (in)equality. Specifically, to this effect, the chapters consider digital affordances of virtual exchange, gaming, and apps in technology-mediated language learning and teaching ranging from instructed and semi-instructed to self-instructed contexts. The volume foregrounds the concepts of critical digital literacy and social justice in relation to language learner and teacher autonomy and illustrates how this approach may contribute to institutional objectives for equality, diversity and inclusion in higher education around the world and will be useful for researchers and teachers alike.

Autonomous Language Learning with Technology

Autonomous Language Learning with Technology
Author: Chun Lai
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2017-06-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1474240429

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This book looks beyond the classroom, and focuses on out-of-class autonomous use of technology for language learning, discussing the theoretical frameworks, key findings and critical issues. The proliferation of digital language learning resources and tools is forcing language education into an era of unprecedented change. The book will stimulate discussions on how to support language learners to construct quality autonomous technology-mediated out-of-class learning experience outside the classroom and raise greater awareness of and research interest in this field. Out-of-class learning constitutes an important context for human development, and active engagement in out-of-class activities is associated with successful language development. With convenient access to expanded resources, venues and learning spaces, today's learners are not as dependent on in-class learning as they used to be. Thus, a deeper understanding of the terrain of out-of-class learning is of increasing significance in the current educational era. Technology is part and parcel of out-of-class language learning, and has been a primary source that learners actively use to construct language learning experience beyond the classroom. Language learners of all ages around the world have been found to actively utilize technological resources to support their language learning beyond formal language learning contexts. Insights into learners' out-of-class autonomous use of technology for language learning are essential to our understanding of out-of-class learning and inform educators on how language learners could be better supported to maximize the educational potentials of technology to construct quality out-of-class learning experience.

Social Dimensions of Autonomy in Language Learning

Social Dimensions of Autonomy in Language Learning
Author: G. Murray
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2014-05-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1137290242

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This book examines how autonomy in language learning is fostered and constrained in social settings through interaction with others and various contextual features. With theoretical grounding, the authors discuss the implications for practice in classrooms, distance education, self-access centres, as well as virtual and social learning spaces.

Learner Autonomy and CALL Environments

Learner Autonomy and CALL Environments
Author: Klaus Schwienhorst
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2012-11-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1134233620

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This volume brings together two prominent strands in second language acquisition theory and research: the concept of learner autonomy and computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Learner autonomy supports learners in becoming more reflective and communicative and in experimenting with language and language learning. CALL environments offer more and qualitatively different opportunities for learner autonomy than the traditional language classroom. This book offers researchers a starting point into researching learner autonomy in CALL contexts and offers teachers practical advice on chances and pitfalls in realizing learner autonomy goals in the CALL-supported classroom.