Using Dynamic Environments in Foreign Language Teaching

With the advent of virtual environments, challenges and opportunities for innovative teaching and enhancement of student learning can be conducted more efficiently. What is important to this process is the use of strategies to foster transfer of knowledge generation dispositions from teacher to learner. The concept of leveraging strategic control of the knowledge from teachers to students in virtual learning environments functions as the basis for determining how to make students apply knowledge subsequent to the acquisition of knowledge. Learners of this century are born into digital world. They connect, share and learn by means of latest advances in technology. One of these innovations is social media which embrace web-based and mobile-based technologies to facilitate interactive communication between individuals, institutions, and communities. The Virtual Classroom enables an online learning environment to utilize a learning management system by which the teacher provides course content using a variety of resources and tools. Therefore it provides effective means of teaching students who are dispersed across different locations. Instructional strategies for fostering student engagement in foreign language classrooms are regarded as critical and a variety of theories focus on student learning, needs and adult concerns that provide a basis for transfer of knowledge from teacher to learner. In this study, a recent model which is composed of the dimensions of knowledge, teaching approach and knowledge authority is presented to design virtual learning environments in foreign language teaching. The study was carried out in Selcuk University, School of Foreign Languages in Konya. The results of the study show that dynamic virtual environments are quite significant in foreign language education.

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