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.

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.

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 intheir quest to acquire a foreign language.

Educational technologies continue to advance the ways in which we teach and learn. As these technologies continue to improve our communication with one another, computer-assisted foreign language learning has provided a more efficient way of communication between different languages. Computer-Assisted Foreign Language Teaching and Learning: Technological Advances highlights new research and an original framework that brings together foreign language teaching, experiments and testing practices that utilize the most recent and widely used e-learning resources. This comprehensive collection of research will offer linguistic scholars, language teachers, students, and policymakers a better understanding of the importance and influence of e-learning in second language acquisition.

Population diversity is becoming more prevalent globally with increasing immigration, emigration, and refugee placement. These circumstances increase the likelihood that a child will be raised speaking a different language in the home than the common language used in each country. This necessitates the development of comprehensive strategies that promote second language learning through the adoption of new technological advancements. New Technological Applications for Foreign and Second Language Learning and Teaching is a scholarly publication that explores how the latest technologies have the potential to engage foreign and second language learners both within and outside the language classroom and to facilitate language learning and teaching in the target language. Highlighting a range of topics such as learning analytics, digital games, and telecollaboration, this book is ideal for teachers, instructional designers, curriculum developers, IT consultants, educational software developers, language learning specialists, academicians, administrators, professionals, researchers, and students.

Language learning is a complex and challenging endeavor. For students to achieve the desired proficiency in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) their institutions need to invest time, effort and huge resources in order to cater for different learning styles. To be cost effective, many language-teaching institutions strive to provide intensive foreign language (FL) instruction to reduce the time period needed to learn the target language. This explains the current interest in combining differe...

The potential to integrate augmented reality into educational settings has led to the development of myriad programs for implementing these transformative technologies into education. However, the transformative learning processes possible for learners can best be developed through integration in immersive virtual learning environments. The integration of augmented reality (AR) technologies into education involves matching the potential of AR with the most effective instructional model for immersing learners in the learning process. With current research focused heavily on blended or online learning, augmented reality fits right into the new technologies and trends that are being developed and utilized on a consistent basis. There is a need for research that provides detailed curriculum guides, templates for designing virtual worlds, evaluation processes, and immersive learning procedures that can be utilized to provide the best educational environment for student success. Implementing Augmented Reality Into Immersive Virtual Learning Environments provides current research for the integration of transformative new technologies into multiple educational settings. Examining the why, what, and how of integrating augmented reality into immersive virtual learning technologies, this book covers various educational settings, such as nursing education, sports coaching, language education, and more. While highlighting the benefits for virtual reality, its role in remote learning, the logistics of simulation, and branches of it such as gamification, this book is ideally intended for teachers, school administrators, teacher educators, practitioners, IT specialists, educational software developers, researchers, academicians, and students interested in integrating augmented reality in educational programs.

The exponential growth in the amount and complexity of information transmitted and shared on the Internet and the capabilities afforded by new information technologies result in the continuous emergence of new genres and new literacy practices that call for new models of genre analysis and new approaches to teaching literacy and language, where language learning autonomy has to take centre stage. Any pedagogical approach which seeks to develop autonomy in online language learning should also be concerned with the development of new literacies, with raising an awareness of digital texts and with the cognitive processes learners engage in when constructing meaning in hypertext. The purpose of this volume is to lay the foundations for an approach to online language learning which draws on the analysis of digital texts and of the practices and strategies involved in using such texts. With this aim in mind, this book incorporates and draws relations between research on digital genres, autonomy, electronic literacies and language learning tasks, combining theoretical reflections with pedagogical research. The chapters in this volume, written by researchers from different academic traditions, report research concerning digital genres, new literacy skills and the design of webtasks for effective language learning. These chapters will be useful resources for researchers and doctoral students interested in the development of autonomous language learning in digital environments.