Teachers as Augmented Reality Designers: A Study on Italian as a Foreign Language - Teacher Perceptions

Abstract

As an emergent technology augmented reality (AR) demonstrated a plethora of advantages in foreign language education, promoting motivation, memorization of contents, as well as contextualized learning. However, the majority of teachers are unfamiliar with AR, and their role as designers and facilitators requires further investigation. Moreover, English is the most explored target language, and the study of AR for the teaching of Italian as a foreign language (TIFL) is limited. Therefore, the investigation explored the perceptions of educators on the experience of designing and implementing mobile AR (MAR) for TIFL. In line with other studies, findings showed that, according to teacher perceptions, MAR can promote the overall learning process. However, the study highlighted issues like the availability of open-source MAR platforms and materials specifically designed for language educators. Moreover, the need of ongoing teacher training as well as possible economical and infrastructural limitations in specific social contexts must be considered, before implementing AR on a large-scale.