Abstract:

The International classroom is increasingly gaining ground in Spanish Higher education. Together with its obvious advantages, this setting implies new challenges that frequently have to be faced with new solutions by the teachers. A good command of the foreign language in which the classes are given is not enough usually to go through with success. Each discipline has specific vocabulary and specific ways of expressing knowledge that are not learnt in standard language classes. Thus, students have to deal not only with acquiring knowledge on the contents taught in the classroom, but also have to learn this specific use of the foreign language. Interactive e-learning tools may be developed to help students in this task, but need of a close interaction between teacher and Information Technologist (IT) involved in the software development. Good understanding between both makes it possible to design applications that cover the learning needs but with a flexible structure that enables the teacher to modify contents without being an IT. Here we present some such examples of interactive open-access apps that were developed recently to help Spanish students learning Paleontology through English.

Keywords:

Interactive learning tools, higher education, specific vocabulary, technical language, on-line classroom.