Abstract:

The use of mobile applications for educational purposes have become a key aspect that promotes the introduction of new technology in schools, colleges and universities, in addition to the motivational and interactive characteristics that technology offers to students. Therefore, many professors, researchers and practitioners have been paying more attention on how to efficiently introduce new technology in their works and classrooms. Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the most studied technology in the current generation and thus, have been applied in many areas of education such as English language. The learning of a new language becomes difficult for foreign students where their native language is not English and consequently those students need to improve different skills to effectively understand a second language. Reading skills in English learning is recognized as one of the most important skills that students need to practice in order to comprehend and understand any academic context.

Even though there are many researchers that study the inclusion of new technology in education, still there is a lack of practical examples of how to develop educational mobile apps to improve English skills such as reading. Most of the academic information that can be found on scientific databases are theoretical and pedagogic works. Hence, this research aims to provide good practices on the development of an AR mobile app for enhancing English reading skills. The following work is based on a 3 steps-methodology. The first step is the creation of pre-reading, during-reading and post-reading activities from a basic English course curriculum. Second step is based on the transformation of reading activities into Augmented Reality through an Android mobile application by using UNITY and VUFORIA. The last step includes the testing of a mobile app prototype with 2 groups of students and the analysis of their motivational aspects as well as the enhancement of their reading skills.

Keywords:

Augmented Reality, AR, English, Education, Technology, EFL, Mobile App.