Webinar: Interactive Media

Interactive Media: How New Technologies Enhance Language Learning Environments

Date:  Monday, May 16, 2016

Time:  11:00am PT / 12:00pm MT / 1:00pm CT / 2:00pm ET

Presenter(s):  Margarita Ribas Groeger and Dagmar Jaeger, MIT

New technologies are dramatically shaping the ways we teach language and the ways our students learn. They have made possible new approaches that combine voice, video, images and text to enhance the language learning process. These new digital tools have opened up new possibilities to foster meaningful communication, interaction and collaboration in the target language, both in and outside the classroom. More importantly they increase motivation as students become agents of their own learning. However, the variety and availability of these tools poses a constant challenge to us as language teachers. How can we best harness the potential of these new technologies to advance students’ linguistic proficiency? What pedagogical approaches should inform the communicative tasks we design in order to maximize our students’ interest and motivation? How do we integrate these new digital tools into our language curriculum? In this webinar we will show how effective use of interactive media increases students’ opportunities for meaningful communication and collaboration in the target language and promotes students’ ownership of their own learning. Using representative examples of successful activities and of students’ work we will show how to leverage the power of digital technologies to make language learning more relevant to our students’ diverse interests and experiences while developing their communicative skills.