Abstract:

In past decades the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, and Assessment (CEFR), is widely adopted and accepted as a European standard for teaching and learning foreign languages. CEFR’s implementation promotes the linguistic diversity within the European Union and additionally support the use of Information and Communication Technologies as networks and digital tools at the service of teaching or learning foreign languages.

In this broader context, the use of New Technologies has become today a key factor. The slow expansion of Virtual Reality’s applications over the past years, meet the advances of mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) and in mobile technologies that merge the real world with digital information leading to Augmented Reality applications.

On the one hand, some of the Virtual reality (VR) applications such as Virtual Worlds can be an important tool for the cooperative teaching and 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. On the other hand, much of the current Augmented Reality (AR) applications, also can promote foreign language teaching and learning, although are mainly developed for marketing and commerce purposes. Especially in the educational area, this new technology is still searching for its role.

In the above context, the present study describes recently conducted courses to higher education' classes related to the use of some VR and AR current tools and apps. The two classes were asked to develop communicative language activities, based on CEFR's communicative language competences, using some of these tools and then comment and discuss their results.

The results showed that some uses of VR and AR implementations are suitable for foreign language education and can further promote interdisciplinary approaches on foreign language learning and culture.
This work highlights the importance of both Virtual reality and Augmented Reality tools, their potential contribution to foreign language education and explores their perspectives. Furthermore, it discusses the educational benefits and drawbacks of them and proposed a set of basic uses based on empirical approaches and techniques that we have followed in these courses.

In that way, we believe that future language teachers will be able to develop communicative language learning activities that can be used to enhance the language learning and performance of their students, increasing their interest and motivation.

Keywords:

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Linguistic skills, Language learning.