Augmented Reality in and beyond the EFL Classroom

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Justus Liebig University (JLU) Giessen, Germany

The 7th International CLS Conference CLaSIC will be held at the National University of Singapore, December 1-3, 2016, hosted by the Centre for Language Studies. The conference theme is “Learning in and beyond the classroom: Ubiquity in foreign language education”.  I am pleased to note that my proposal for a paper entitled “Employing augmented reality for adaptive learning in and beyond the EFL classroom” has been accepted for presentation. This is the abstract:

“Crafting a vision of the future is a challenging task. Since future developments are difficult to anticipate, visions are often vague, deficient or even turn out to be completely mistaken. And since they evolve out of interpretations of the past and the present, they are also subjective to a large degree. Even if visions are based on powerful theoretical frameworks, backed up by solid empirical evidence, and developed in ways, they remain uncertain and controversial. How convincing and useful a vision is, however, does not depend on its predictive potential. The value of a vision lies rather in its projective power and in its potential to raise questions that already are or might become increasingly important. Taking this into consideration, this talk reports on current research into the development of a future generation of EFL textbooks and accompanying materials and media in Germany. The vision for the project is to create a mobile, interactive, and adaptive learning and teaching assistance system for personalized use in and beyond the EFL classroom. The talk will culminate in the presentation of the ‘Zoom-App’, a multimodal prototype software application designed to enhance self-regulated learning by overlaying supportive digital content onto the physical textbook page.”

German-speaking readers will find a brief video introduction to the technology and its potentials for foreign language learning and teaching on this website.