Games for Academic Vocabulary Learning through a Virtual Environment

Abstract

This paper describes the challenges faced in language learning and use, with a focus on domain-specific vocabulary learning. We focus on the architecture and the presentation model of domain-specific knowledge components. The paper first discusses the significance of assistive mechanisms for vocabulary learning in an academic domain and then outlines two architectures for the presentation model. We suggest how the design of this environment for vocabulary use and learning in the academic domain must adopt different presentations and search strategies to confront the specific challenges in the domain. As this problem can only be solved on a long term basis, we also briefly describe a set of games as a first step in the implementation of the assistive mechanisms.