Interdisciplinarity in virtual worlds: teaching approaches for acquiring a language-culture.

Arvanitis Panagiotis, Panagiotidis Panagiotis, Kigitsioglou-Vlachou Aikaterini (2014). 7th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, Seville - Spain, 17/11/2014-19/11/2014, CD-ROM, ICERI2014 Proceedings. p.3892-3901.

Virtual Worlds are among the fastest growing areas of web 2.0, as they dispose characteristics that promote the development of all kinds of applications not only for communication and entertainment, but for education, as well. This work highlights the importance of Virtual Worlds, their potential and their contribution to foreign language education and explores the perspectives for further exploitation. Virtual Worlds can be an important tool for the cooperative learning of a foreign language and culture, and can facilitate the acquisition of the target language, while also promoting interdisciplinarity through their multi-potential dimension. The present paper presents implementations of the use of Virtual Worlds for foreign language education through interdisciplinary approaches with particular emphasis on foreign language learning and culture.

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"Speech Acts in a Virtual World: Design and Implementation". In  L. Bradley & S. Thouësny (eds)
20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future, Research-publishing.net, Dublin Ireland, ISBN: 978-1-908416-13-1, DOI: 10.14705/rpnet.2013.000132

In the first half of the twentieth century, notions such as linguistic structures and student’s linguistic capacity were the traditional elements of any language teaching. With the significant contribution of Halliday and Hymes these notions are yielding their place to the functional use of language and how language is being shaped by the different communicative situations. This new, communicative approach of teaching a foreign language, had led the redefinition of learning objectives and general principles of the teaching act.

"Augmented Reality in Language teaching and learning?". Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (EDULEARN12), L. Gómez Chova, I. Candel Torres, A. López Martínez (eds). 
ISBN: 978-84-695-3491-5. London: International Association of Technology, Education and Development (IATED), 2012.

In recent years, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) has become widespread in second language teaching and learning contexts. The language teaching and learning processes encompasses and requires the use of authentic language multimedia and multimodal materials such as text, audio, video and images. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (abbreviated as CEFR), is widely adopted and accepted as the European standard for teaching and learning foreign languages. It’s implementation promote the linguistic diversity within the European Union and additionally support the use of ICT as networks and digital tools at the service of teaching / learning foreign languages. In this context, the use of new technologies has become a key factor.

"An assessment tool for online language learning computer games"
P. Arvanitis, P. Krystalli, P. Panagiotidis, 2012
Proceedings of London International Conference on Education (LICE 2012).
London 2012

The evolution of technology and the strong belief that computer games promote learning contributed to the increase of educational computer games available online in the field of teaching and learning a foreign language.