Teaching Foreign Language Professional Communication using

Augmented Reality Elements

Svitlana M. Amelina

1 a

, Rostyslav O. Tarasenko

1 b

, Serhiy O. Semerikov

2,3,4,5 c

and

Yuliya M. Kazhan

6 d

National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Heroiv Oborony Str., Kyiv, 03041, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih National University, 11 Vitalii Matusevych Str., Kryvyi Rih, 50027, Ukraine

Institute for Digitalisation of Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, 9 M. Berlynskoho

Str., Kyiv, 04060, Ukraine

University of Educational Management, 52A Sichovykh Striltsiv Str., Kyiv, 04053, Ukraine

Mariupol State University, 129a Budivelnykiv Ave., Mariupol, 87500, Ukraine

Keywords:

Augmented Reality, AR-Technology, QR Codes, Foreign Language, Communication Skills.

Abstract:

The article deals with the analysis of the possibilities of AR-technology application for the development of

foreign language professional communication skills when students learn a foreign language (on the example

of German). The advantages of using AR-technology in this process are deﬁned, namely: the possibility of

involving different channels of information perception, the integrity of the representation of the object under

study, and detailing its individual structural elements if necessary, more efﬁcient acquisition of the domain

terminological vocabulary, and the development of foreign-language communicative skills. It is shown that

QR codes can be easily and affordably used to retrieve information about the object of study from public

internet sources. The use of AR elements in the process of learning a foreign language, in the form of virtual

excursions, is proposed. The results of a survey of students after the virtual excursions are presented. The tech-

nological and didactic requirements for organising vocational foreign language studies using AR-technology

have been determined.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the main tasks of educational institutions at

the present stage is the search for new educational

technologies that can help increase the efﬁciency of

information assimilation, acquisition of professional

knowledge, development of abstract thinking, the

search for innovative solutions, etc., which in general

should cause qualitative changes in the implementa-

tion of the competency-based approach to the organi-

zation of the educational process. Undoubtedly, such

educational technologies should be based on the use

of information technologies, since their potential ca-

pabilities are inexhaustible in the processes of cogni-

tion of the surrounding world and which today can

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6008-3122

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6258-2921

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0789-0272

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4248-4248

fundamentally change the traditional approaches to

the presentation of learning objects, the ways of their

study and research, the mapping of connections in real

and virtual dimensions.

There are a number of technologies that can

change people’s perception of reality: virtual real-

ity (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality

(MR). Virtual reality (VR) represents a designed en-

vironment that has nothing to do with the real world

at all. Mixed or Hybrid Reality (MR) is a technol-

ogy that allows the interaction of real and virtual ob-

jects to be seen. The difference between augmented

reality and other types of reality is that in the case

of augmented reality there is a partial replacement of

the real world by extending it with a virtual image

(Lavrentieva et al., 2020).

Using AR technology allows a person to quickly

ﬁnd and receive information about real objects, which

can be represented in any volume and displayed in a

symbolic, sound, graphic or animated form.

714

Amelina, S., Tarasenko, R., Semerikov, S. and Kazhan, Y.

Teaching Foreign Language Professional Communication using Augmented Reality Elements.

DOI: 10.5220/0010927700003364

In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2020) - Volume 1, pages 714-725

ISBN: 978-989-758-558-6

In production, AR fundamentally changes the pro-

cesses of designing and manufacturing technologi-

cally complex products, while increasing labour pro-

ductivity and reducing errors. A special effect, as

already shown by the practice of some large com-

panies, is achieved by training personnel or improv-

ing their qualiﬁcations. In this case, ﬁrst, timesaving

are achieved because employees learn directly during

work. In addition, the hint system is more understand-

able and accessible, since it can provide not only the

provision of explanatory information, but even sim-

ulate the ﬁnished product based on its individual el-

ements. Using such technologies in the professional

training of specialists in higher education institutions,

we can apply the latest forms of methodological sup-

port of the educational process, which will directly

accompany the process of cognition and research.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the pos-

sibilities of augmented reality technology applica-

tion for the development of foreign language profes-

sional communication skills and abilities of students

in learning a foreign language (on the example of Ger-

man); to set a list of augmented reality elements that

can be applied in this process; to develop technolog-

ical and didactic prerequisites for foreign language

learning organization in this way.

2 RESEARCH METHODS

Theoretical analysis of scientiﬁc publications on the

impact of AR on the educational process, in particu-

lar on learning English, allowed us to determine the

degree of knowledge of the problem under study and

to specify the topic for our research. The descriptive

method was appropriate to describe the background,

path and results of our research.

An experimental trial was needed to test the ef-

fectiveness of using a number of AR elements in the

educational process. It involved the participation of

students in group work regarding the preparation and

direct use of AR elements in German language learn-

ing. 39 students took part in a questionnaire survey.

The questionnaire contained questions grouped into

four blocks: motivational, informative, linguistic and

technological.

We used generalisation to draw the most impor-

tant conclusions from the research conducted and the

results obtained.

3 LITERATURE REVIEW

The technology of AR is not only increasingly used in

various industries and ﬁelds of science, but attempts

have already been made to apply it in the educational

process. This mainly occurs in foreign universities,

and is reﬂected in a number of publications by sci-

entists. In particular, according to Kaya and Bicen

(Kaya and Bicen, 2019), AR applications can be used

in almost any educational environment, and their use

in the educational process increases the level of stu-

dents’ knowledge.

According to Bower et al. (Bower et al., 2014),

AR can cause a profound transformation of modern

education. Overlay multimedia on the real world to

see via web devices such as phones and tablet devices,

means that information can be made available to stu-

dents at any time and in any place. Scientists believe

that this can also reduce students’ cognitive overload.

Santos et al. (Santos et al., 2014) identiﬁed the

beneﬁts of AR technology, which included real an-

notation, contextual visualization, and haptic visual-

ization. Scientists substantiate these advantages with

several latest theories – multimedia learning, exper-

imental learning and the theory of animation visual-

ization.

In the context of our study, the developments of

scientists and practical teachers on the use of AR in

the study of foreign languages are of particular in-

terest. In particular, Godwin-Jones (Godwin-Jones,

2016) focuses on the links between AR and mod-

ern theories of foreign language learning, which em-

phasize localized, 12 contextual learning and seman-

tic connections with the real world. The researcher

considers this possibility using mobile games created

using the ARIS platform (AR and Interactive Story-

telling), a free open source game editor of the Univer-

sity of Wisconsin. From his point of view, there are

various ways for teachers to use the AR, because it

is advisable to study the language in connection with

expanded digital spaces.

Liu and Tsai (Liu and Tsai, 2013) focused on

building written writing skills in English at Taiwan

universities using AR through the use of multimedia

documents (such as photographs and videos) in the

process of learning English with computer support to

improve students’ language skills, which are neces-

sary for their written assignments (writing an essay).

Akc¸ayır and Akc¸ayır (Akc¸ayır and Akc¸ayır, 2016)

investigated the students’ attitude to their use of AR

applications in learning English, in particular, for

learning new vocabulary. According to the results of

the study, they found that the technology saves time

by simplifying the search for a new word. In addition,

Teaching Foreign Language Professional Communication using Augmented Reality Elements

715

AR programs help students remember words. The

problem that students encountered during the study,

the authors indicated the recognition of the QR code.

According to students, the small screens of mobile

phones make it difﬁcult to use them in teaching and

learning a language.

Considering the search by scientists for ways to

intensify the study of foreign languages and the in-

sufﬁcient development of this problem in terms of the

use of AR technology in general and in the study of

foreign languages, in addition to English, where some

attempts have already been made, the question of us-

ing AR technology in the process of learning foreign

languages is relevant and requires a separate study. In

addition, as the analysis of the above works shows,

the application of AR technology in the study of En-

glish is mainly concentrated on the study of vocabu-

lary, which limits the use of this technology, because

its potential is much greater.

4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The process of gaining knowledge usually requires

the use of different methods and tools for work-

ing with information, depending on the technological

possibilities and basic didactic and pedagogical mod-

els. The development of cognitive didactics has led

to the emergence of a new concept of learning, based

on taking into account the way people process infor-

mation. At the same time, the main attention is paid

to such cognitive structural and process components

of learning as thinking, perception and problem solv-

ing. In the process of training aimed at obtaining new

knowledge, cognitive structures should change taking

into account motivational and affective factors.

When considering the application of augmented

reality technology in students’ learning of a foreign

language in general and in the development of for-

eign language professional communication skills, we

proceeded from the fact that it is necessary to identify

and take into account the technological and didactic

requirements for organising this type of learning.

As for technological requirements, ﬁrst it is neces-

sary that each of the students have gadgets to perform

tasks with installed, functionally suitable, software to

process the AR elements chosen as aids in learning

German. A signiﬁcant obstacle that would make such

work difﬁcult or even impossible could be insufﬁcient

quality of Internet access. Care should therefore be

taken to ensure a stable internet connection. Before

planning the use of AR technology in the classroom,

the teacher should verify the existence of augmented

reality objects on the chosen topic and their avail-

ability (free internet access, etc.). In addition, hav-

ing different options for working with selected ob-

jects – real-time, asynchronous timing – will allow

the teacher to practise variation in tasks and thus di-

versify the course.

Providing certain didactic requirements for the in-

clusion of AR elements is equally important for their

effective use in the process of developing foreign

language professional communication skills. When

it comes to professional communication, it is clear

that this involves enriching students’ vocabulary with

domain-speciﬁc terminology. Therefore, one of the

didactic requirements is to have a basic knowledge of

a foreign language as a basis for students to perform

AR technology tasks precisely for the stated purpose.

The basic skills of the other ﬁeld are also needed to

engage students in the work envisaged, namely the

basic skills of learning a foreign language using In-

ternet resources, on which AR can be built. On the

part of the teacher, an atmosphere of immersion in a

foreign language environment should be created and

strategies for developing productive speech should be

provided. This means that the tasks and the organiza-

tion of the students’ work should be designed in such

a way as to stimulate the students’ independent pro-

duction of dialogical and monological speech based

on the elements of AR. A very important condition

for the development of professional communication is

the adequate choice of the topic of the session, which

should be more or less related to the specialty of the

students. The thematic orientation of the content of

a particular session, in turn, inﬂuences the choice of

AR elements. In this context, we also emphasize the

careful design of each individual task so that students

understand the complexity of speech activity as an in-

tegral part of their future professional work.

New technologies, which are becoming more ac-

cessible today, contain new didactic potential regard-

ing the possibilities of working with information in

the process of studying certain topics (Tarasenko and

Amelina, 2020). In particular, the study of a foreign

language is impossible without the inclusion in the

educational material of linguistic and geographical in-

formation related to the country of the language being

studied, its traditions, the speciﬁc historical or cul-

tural inﬂuence of the representatives of this country

and the reﬂection of all these aspects in the students’

native country or city. Since it is not always possi-

ble to carry out a real excursion to a speciﬁc region

or to a particular attraction, and sometimes this is im-

practical due to lack of time, there is the possibility of

a virtual excursion that can thematically present the

contents of the excursion regardless of time, logistic

and human resources. The essence of modern cogni-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

716

tive excursion didactics is the orientation to indepen-

dent actions, which accelerates the process of acquir-

ing knowledge. In addition, due to its speciﬁcity, the

excursion has a positive motivating effect (Schmidt

et al., 2013). This can increase motivation to learn a

foreign language, which ultimately leads to a higher

efﬁciency of learning it.

Based on the above considerations, we chose to

create a virtual excursion for German language stu-

dents as a basic organizational and informational

complex. We implemented the use of such a complex

in the study of German by students on the example

of the topic “Traces of German architects in the his-

tory of Kiev”. It is worth noting that, since Kyiv is

an attractive city for German-speaking tourists, sev-

eral virtual tours in German have already been devel-

oped. In particular, this is the Reisen Kiew project of

the Kiewer Stadtf

uhrer, which covers the most famous

historical monuments of the Ukrainian capital. How-

ever, we invited students to consider the outstanding

sightseeing objects of the city from a different angle,

namely, as indicated in the topic – in terms of the con-

tribution of German architects to their design and con-

struction.

At the initial stage, the selection of objects for a

virtual tour was carried out. For this purpose, a num-

ber of materials were analyzed regarding historical

objects in the territory of the city of Kyiv, as a result

of which the following architectural monuments were

selected:

1. St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral. The construc-

tion of the cathedral began in 1862 and lasted 40

years. Its construction involved several architects

and painters. In 1853-1859, the prominent archi-

tect of German origin, Ivan Strom, designed the

St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral; architects P. Sparro,

A. Beretti and V. Nikolaev amended the design.

Later, German engineer Berengardt was involved

in solving technical problems.

2. St. Sophia’s Cathedral. The cathedral, built

in 1037, was destroyed several times. In 1736–

1740, the Ukrainian architect of North German

origin, Johann Gottfried Schedel reconstructed

the main bell tower. He also built a stone wall

around the St. Sophia’s Monastery, very success-

fully combining Western style elements with ele-

ments of the Cossack Baroque and folk motifs.

3. Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Until 1745, the architect

and engineer Johann Gottfried Schedel worked

on the construction of the bell tower of the Kyiv

Pechersk Lavra, which became one of the best

bell towers in Eastern Europe of the 18th century.

Schedel developed a project in a transitional style

from baroque to classicism. The bell tower of the

Assumption Cathedral was built according to his

design in the form of an octagonal four-tier tower

with a height of 96.5 meters.

4. St. Andrew’s Church. The foundations of St.

Andrew’s Church were built according to the de-

sign of J. G. Schedel; however, the design of

the temple itself, submitted by him, was not ap-

proved. Carved details of the iconostasis, accord-

ing to sketches and drawings by F.-B. Rastrelli,

created by the master (J. Domash, A. Karlovsky,

M. Manturov, D. Ustars, H. Oreidah, J. Zunfer),

among which there were several Germans. Ger-

man master Johann Friedrich Grot led installation

work.

5. National Opera of Ukraine. After the old

theater building burned down in 1896, an inter-

national architectural competition for the design

of a new opera house was announced. More

than twenty well-known architects from differ-

ent countries – Italy, Germany, Russia and France

– attended the competition, and the winner was

the project of the architect of German-Baltic ori-

gin Victor Schr

oter, a representative of the ratio-

nal direction of eclecticism in architecture. The

new city theater was built from 1898 to 1901

in the style of rationalism, baroque and neo-

Romanesque style.

6. Klov Palace. The architects J. G. Schedel and

P. I. Neyelov built Klov Palace in 1756. The Ger-

man painter and jeweler Benedict Friedrich per-

formed a number of works, in particular, the paint-

ing of the ceiling in the large hall of the Klov

Palace. The German garden master Johann Blech

worked on the Klovsky garden.

7. Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Famous archi-

tects took part in the competition for construc-

tion projects at the Polytechnic Institute, includ-

ing Germans and Austrians, in particular: Benoit,

Gauguin, Kitner, Kobelev, Pomerantsev, Tsender

and Schr

oter. The jury recognized the best project

of Professor I. S. Kitner, under the motto “Prestis-

simo” (“Very Fast”). The construction of six uni-

versity buildings in the Romanesque style began

on August 30, 1898 and was completed in 1901.

After determining the content of the future virtual

tour, that is, the selection of the outstanding architec-

tural structures of Kyiv associated with the work of

German architects, engineers and decoration painters,

information resources were identiﬁed that students

can use to prepare and conduct a virtual tour. Provid-

ing students with assistance in information resources

was determined, on the one hand, by the desire to re-

duce the time for them to complete the task, since lo-

Teaching Foreign Language Professional Communication using Augmented Reality Elements

717

cal history aspects are only part of the German lan-

guage classes, and, on the other hand, to limit the

amount of information for processing by directing it

to certain subtopics. In addition, interactivity, a va-

riety of materials and multimedia play an important

role in creating a virtual tour. Another important as-

pect that we were guided by was also the understand-

ing that when integrating information into a virtual

tour, we should respect copyrights, that is, use only

those sources that are publicly available or those for

which a permit is granted.

First, students were offered the job of processing a

digital map of Kyiv, since the maps provide an under-

standing of the integrity of the territory with objects

located on it and possible connections between them,

form a sense of scale and improve spatial orientation.

Using digital maps, students can easily create virtual

sightseeing tours, combining sightseeing objects with

routes according to certain signs: the chosen topic, the

chronological period, the place of a historical event,

the sequence of location, the logic of movement. In

our study, we used the Google Maps application as

a tool for creating a virtual tour map. One of the

advantages of this tool is the ability to clearly posi-

tion the excursion object on the map using built-in

search tools based on addresses. Coloured markers

were superimposed on automatically identiﬁed points

on a digital map to conveniently identify each virtual

tour object (see ﬁgure 1).

The main task of students was to develop their

own excursions based on the use of the proposed

map. At the same time, each group selects one of

the characteristics for building the route. As already

noted, the virtual tour was to maximize the achieve-

ment of the main goal, in particular, the deepening

of the study of the German language by acquaintance

with architectural monuments built with the participa-

tion of German architects. In this case, the informa-

tive part about the objects of the virtual excursion had

to combine text, photo and video information into a

single, complementary information case, formed us-

ing AR technologies. Guided by these requirements,

access to the necessary information on mapped ar-

chitectural monuments should be provided through-

out the tour. One of the ways to obtain information,

quickly and conveniently, in various forms is the use

of modern mobile devices that are capable of repro-

ducing multimedia information concentrated on vari-

ous web pages. An important issue remains the search

for the right information and quick access.

Students were asked to solve this problem by cre-

ating a system of QR codes that provide information

support for a virtual tour, providing quick access to

information about a particular object of the tour in

different forms. It is known that a QR code can be

generated for textual information, a URL, an e-mail,

a phone number, etc., it is easily and stably recog-

nized by special scanners and provides quick access

to encoded information.

To this end, students ﬁrst processed open Inter-

net resources with text, photo and video information

about the objects of the excursion, selected the most

successful of them, and then, using QR-code genera-

tors, formed the corresponding set of codes. An ex-

ample of a set of QR codes for information about one

of such objects of the excursion, the bell tower of the

Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, is shown in ﬁgure 2.

The main condition for the preparation of textual

information was that it should be in German. One of

the sources that students used for this purpose was the

open electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia (ﬁgure 3).

This approach had a double effect, since students, on

the one hand, processed German sources in the pro-

cess of searching and selecting the necessary infor-

mation, and on the other hand, created the opportunity

to receive extended information in German about ob-

jects during the virtual tour for her ”visitors”, which

were students from other groups.

However, for many people, information in the

form of a graphic image is more informative than text.

In particular, many facts can be presented more fully

and clearly in the photograph than in words. There-

fore, in a virtual tour the use of images is especially

important. In order for the image to be used in a vir-

tual tour, they must be presented in digital form. The

range of such images can be very diverse and range

from simple photographs to interactive maps, man-

aged panoramic images, 3D images and the like. Im-

age types such as satellite images are also well suited

for inclusion in virtual tours. The use of mobile de-

vices in the process of conducting virtual excursions

with access to images about the object has signiﬁ-

cant advantages compared to providing these images

in print, primarily due to the possibility of increas-

ing images, changing their brightness and contrast,

making even small details visible. When preparing

virtual excursions, students sought to provide access

through a QR code not to individual images about the

object, but to a collection of photographs that would

allow them to get the most out of a particular architec-

tural landmark (ﬁgure 4). For this purpose, students

used the resources of Google Images, Wikiway and

the like.

The advantages of video resources are that the pre-

sentation of information on the corresponding excur-

sion space is almost realistic and relatively uncompli-

cated. Like photographs, especially panoramic pho-

tographs, ﬁlms and videos very closely convey the at-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

718

Figure 1: Digital map of Kyiv with printed objects proposed for a virtual tour (Google resource).

Figure 2: A set of QR codes with text (a), graphic (b) and

video (c) about the bell tower of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.

mosphere of real visits to places of excursion objects.

In addition, in the case of using video, there is not

only visual perception, but also perception of infor-

mation by ear.

On this basis, when designing virtual excursions,

students integrated thematic ﬁlms and videos by link-

ing to video portals such as YouTube, Vimeo. An ex-

ample of a link to the corresponding video fragment

encoded by a QR code is shown in ﬁgure 5. Topically

relevant videos can be quickly found using targeted

keyword searches. As with photographs, we also need

to respect copyrights regarding videos and ﬁlms.

It is worth noting that the communication of the

group members during the preparation of the virtual

tour also contributed to the formation of teamwork

skills among students and provided them with the op-

portunity to develop communication skills in foreign

languages. In addition, working together on one topic

and intending to achieve a common goal, students

learned from each other to build sentences of differ-

ent types with the correct word order, learned conver-

sational vocabulary options, trained pronunciation of

individual words and phrases.

Upon completion of the development of virtual

tours of each group, they were tested by students who

did not take part in their preparation. After pass-

ing these excursions, a questionnaire was proposed,

which was aimed at assessing the effectiveness of a

virtual excursion with elements of AR in studying

the German language. This questionnaire contained

questions grouped into four blocks: motivational, in-

formative, linguistic and technological. 39 people at-

tended the survey. The results of the answers to the

questionnaire are shown in table 1.

The results of the survey indicate that the use of

virtual excursions with elements of AR aroused in-

terest among students, which manifested itself to dif-

ferent degrees and in different aspects when studying

the German language. In particular, this approach has

most positively affected the substantive aspect of this

process. A rather high percentage of students (76.9%)

noted that the elements of AR provided them with ex-

tended information about the excursion objects pre-

sented.

Teaching Foreign Language Professional Communication using Augmented Reality Elements

719

Figure 3: A fragment of a web page with textual information about the bell tower of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, access to which

is generated by a QR code.

It is gratifying to note that the level of positive an-

swers in the technological unit was also quite high

(58.1%), which indicates students’ readiness for new

forms of organizing the study of a foreign language.

However, some aspects of this process caused quite

serious technological difﬁculties. In particular, 61.5%

of students were not able to fully use the capabili-

ties of the proposed elements of AR due to insuf-

ﬁcient technical characteristics and an inappropriate

software set for their own smartphones.

An undoubtedly positive result of using virtual

tours is the desire expressed by 79.5% of students to

learn German, including in this way. Therefore, it is

advisable for teachers to use the inﬂuence on the mo-

tivation to learn a foreign language, which is created

through the use of AR elements in the educational

process.

Another conﬁrmation of the advisability of using

elements of AR in the study of a foreign language

is the low level of positive answers to the questions

of the linguistic block of the questionnaire. This in-

dicates that the general level of students’ linguistic

knowledge is quite low and therefore needs to be

improved, including through the search for new ap-

proaches and forms of learning a foreign language.

Thus, the use of AR technology contains great po-

tential for the formation of a holistic, realistic view

of objects outside the classroom. Owing to the stu-

dent’s independent actions and his emotional impres-

sion, when perceiving the educational object, an ac-

tive approach of the educational content to the student

occurs, which leads to better assimilation and longer

memorization of knowledge.

Improving the effectiveness of training and longer

memorization of the studied content is achieved

through higher motivation for learning and active and

direct interaction with a real educational object based

on AR technology. Since there are different types of

students depending on the channel of perception of in-

formation (audials, visuals, kinesthetics, mixed types,

etc.) (Mayer et al., 2001;

O D

onaill, 2013; Tarasenko

et al., 2020; ?), thanks to the holistic representation of

objects based on AR technology, a higher level of as-

similation of educational information and the forma-

tion of multicodal representations can be achieved.

One further aspect of our research was to com-

pare the feasibility and relevance of applying other el-

ements of augmented reality technology in addition to

the aforementioned ones when students learn German

with regard to their ﬁeld of study. This is due to the

desire to optimise the professionalization of German

language learning. The most involved in terms of con-

tent and thematic content in the information materials

and augmented reality technology elements reviewed

are the specialities Tourism, Architecture, and His-

tory. Regardless of the specialty or specialisation, it is

common for them to be able to create models of pro-

fessional communication in a foreign language, rely-

ing on elements of augmented reality. In doing so, we

have taken into account that speech activity encom-

passes more than just linguistic competence. In order

to bring training closer to real-life professional situ-

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720

Figure 4: A fragment of a web page with graphic information about the bell tower of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, access to

which is generated by a QR code.

Figure 5: A fragment of a web page with video information

about the bell tower of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, access to

which is generated by a QR code (Reisen Kiew).

ations, we paid attention to the development of soci-

olinguistic and pragmatic competence, which can be

facilitated by the use of AR technology.

We consider the proposed application of AR tech-

nology in the study of German by tourism students to

be appropriate for the following reasons. The range of

available high-performance mobile devices with inte-

grated cameras allows for the increasing use of AR

speciﬁcally in the travel industry. Therefore, tourism

managers and guides should be trained to not only or-

ganise and direct guided tours, but also to prepare and

provide virtual tours or virtual demonstrations of indi-

vidual sites with appropriate descriptions or commen-

tary. Already now, tourists can bring their smartphone

to a sightseeing location that interests them and get in-

formation about it while walking around the city. Of

course, this is possible with a downloaded app. It is

to be expected that in the future such services will be

extended to foreign tourists, who will purchase indi-

vidual tours, partly use the services of a guide, and

partly act on their own.

The study programme in Architecture includes the

history of architecture, construction of buildings and

structures, basic design, architectural design, recon-

struction and restoration of architectural monuments,

and architectural details. For this reason, the study

of German in terms of professional communication

was built around the vocabulary of these issues. At

the same time, the thematic features of the ﬁeld of

architecture are better revealed by studying German

with the help of illustrations of architectural structures

and their individual details, which can be achieved

through AR.

The history specialisation is quite multifaceted.

It covers the study of eras, events, commemorative

dates and prominent ﬁgures in various public spheres.

Much of this information, presented through AR, can

also be a rational basis for the development of com-

municative skills, in particular professional commu-

nication skills in German.

In addition to the AR elements already discussed

above, we also used 3D models in our research, ex-

Teaching Foreign Language Professional Communication using Augmented Reality Elements

721

Table 1: Results of answers to questionnaire questions.

Question

Response rate, %

Yes No

Motivational block 66.7 33.3

Did the virtual tour contribute to the desire to learn German? 79.5 20.5

Are you ready to continue learning the language this way? 66.7 33.3

Have you been encouraged by the existing elements of AR to depth study of

information in German about the excursion objects presented? 53.8 46.2

Content block 77.8 22.2

Have elements of AR provided you with enhanced information about

the excursion objects presented? 76.9 23.1

Did German videos provide understanding of the information about

the object of the excursion? 74.4 25.6

Were the text materials sufﬁcient to obtain information on the topic

of the tour? 82.1 17.9

Linguistic block 53.8 46.2

Did the information presented in the form of elements of AR make it easier

for you to understand excursion materials in German? 61.5 38.5

Did elements of AR help to understand the meaning

of new words in context? 56.4 43.6

Did the augmented reality elements help you remember the terms? 43.6 56.4

Technological block 58.1 41.9

Were there new ways for you to obtain additional information

using QR codes? 71.8 28.2

Have you possessed sufﬁcient skills in using smartphones to receive

information presented as elements of AR? 64.1 35.9

Did the speciﬁcations and software set of smartphones make it possible

to fully utilize the capabilities of the proposed elements of AR? 38.5 61.5

tended to the Tourism, Architecture and History ma-

jors. Such photos and videos are a good way of illus-

trating the learning material. They contribute, on the

one hand, to deepening the perception of the object it-

self and, on the other hand, to immersion in a foreign-

language environment (provided there is a text or cap-

tion).

We have chosen a 3D model of the famous Perg-

amon Altar, which is located in the museum of the

same name in Berlin, for use in German teaching.

Freely available on the Internet, the model provides

an overview of this historic architectural monument

(ﬁgure 6) and makes it possible to see all the desired

details clearly, if necessary (ﬁgure 7).

Thanks to the different “access points” to the ob-

ject there is an opportunity to further use the poten-

tial of AR to develop both monological and dialogical

foreign language communication skills. In order to

increase the level of monological communication, we

used a number of tasks. Some of them are:

• describe the Pergamon altar as a whole, focusing

on its scale, form, construction and material,

• make a suggestion as to the functional purpose of

such a structure,

Figure 6: General view of the Pergamon Altar (3D model).

• describe one of the details in more detail,

• to give a German-language demonstration of a 3D

model of the Pergamon Altar with clear timing.

We developed the skills of dialogical communica-

tion by carrying out, among other things, the follow-

ing tasks:

• clarify individual details about the Pergamon al-

tar,

• ﬁnd out the professional opinion of the person you

are talking to about this historical landmark,

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

722

Figure 7: One part of the Pergamon Altar (3D model).

• discuss the details of the building, presented in the

form of a 3D model.

In the organisation of the learning communication

based on the 3D model, communicative tools were

used, which were made possible by the visualisation

of the 3D model. In particular, students exchanged

opinions and answered questions by visually high-

lighting individual elements of the building.

Depending on the educational programme, there

were some differences in the results of the tasks. For

example, tourism managers were more inclined to

produce longer sentences and reactions, but with less

specialised vocabulary. The architecture students, on

the other hand, paid more attention to architectural de-

tails. Their sayings were rich in terminology, detailed,

though less so, and their sentences were simple. The

history students showed a similar tendency, that is,

they constructed their remarks more simply and used

quite a lot of terms, but of course, it was from the ﬁeld

of their science.

It is worth noting that the 3D model as an AR

element offers access to specially prepared and un-

changed information, visualised. Interactive commu-

nication in the form of interaction with this type of

reality is not foreseen, which limits the development

of foreign-language professional communication ac-

cordingly.

A positive inﬂuence is the activation of the

already existing foreign language communication

skills, which is achieved in two opposite ways. On the

one hand, through the student’s relaxed feeling of be-

ing in the country whose language he or she is learn-

ing. The situation contributes to the student’s need to

talk. On the other hand, since the duration of viewing

augmented reality elements in the form of videos, 3D

models, is usually short, it is this time constraint that

puts gentle pressure on the student, “pushing” them to

engage in the speaking process.

At the same time, the use of the 3D model is pos-

sible not only in the classroom but also in students’

independent learning. As with other elements of AR,

working with the 3D model allowed students to pro-

cess the task at a comfortable pace, focusing on an

aspect, side or detail of the object that is of particular

interest or difﬁculty.

The main problem of using AR technology when

learning a foreign language by organizing virtual

tours, in our study, as in other cases of using digital

information, is the dependence on the technical in-

frastructure and software. Since each student used his

own smartphone with different technical characteris-

tics and his own software set, sometimes this led to

problems with receiving and reproducing information

in accordance with the used technology. Most of these

problems were related to ensuring stable access to the

Internet, improper operation of QR scanners and the

lack of some software installation skills.

The use of AR technology requires appropriate

methodological didactic reorientation, which will cre-

ate the opportunity for students to independently or-

ganize research, collect, evaluate, process and present

information, apply complex hypertext structures, de-

velop network thinking, work within ﬂexible, group,

project-oriented forms of training.

5 CONCLUSIONS

In the course of the study, a number of advantages

of using AR technology in the study of the German

language were identiﬁed. In our opinion, such ad-

vantages can be used in the process of learning other

foreign languages, in particular:

We developed the skills of dialogical communica-

tion by carrying out, among other things, the follow-

ing tasks:

• Due to the integrity of the representation of the

studied object, the student can get a more com-

plete picture of it, and then learn, for example, a

larger amount of new lexical material, since mem-

orizing new words, especially terminology, takes

place faster and remains in memory longer when

new words are not used in isolation, but in con-

text.

• Based on the application of AR technology, stu-

dents can familiarize themselves with objects that

are unique or inaccessible due to spatial remote-

ness (for example, are located in another country),

which will help them in understanding the essence

or purpose of these objects and remembering the

vocabulary associated with them, which it would

be much more difﬁcult to use other information

sources.

• Faster memorization of new vocabulary is also fa-

Teaching Foreign Language Professional Communication using Augmented Reality Elements

723

cilitated by the parallel presentation of informa-

tion case together with selected objects for study,

which allows students to quickly receive extended

information using AR technologies.

• The use of AR technology, in particular in the

form of a virtual tour, which involves working in a

group, allows students to develop communicative

foreign language skills.

• AR technology can be a good tool for learning

a foreign language, because it allows the student

to learn at his own pace. The assimilation of

new knowledge and skills takes place based on

previous knowledge of the language, the level of

which, as shown by pedagogical practice, is very

different even within the same academic group.

• Professionalisation of foreign language learning

by integrating domain-speciﬁc terminology into

the relevant language course by illustrating aug-

mented reality objects and their elements.

• The interdisciplinary potential of augmented re-

ality technology, which will make it possible to

combine the study of some content aspects of stu-

dents’ future speciality with the study of a foreign

language and create the basis for a better career

start for young professionals, including in foreign

or multicultural environments.

The augmented reality elements that can be used

in the process of formation and development of for-

eign language professional communication skills can

be various types of text, graphic and photo/video in-

formation integrated into the learning process by us-

ing specially generated QR codes as augmented real-

ity tags as well as freely available 3D models.

On the basis of our review of the possibilities of

applying AR technology in the process of developing

foreign-language professional communication skills,

we identiﬁed a number of technological and didactic

requirements for including AR elements in this pro-

cess.

Technological requirements include:

• availability of gadgets for students to carry out the

tasks,

• the installation by students of the necessary soft-

ware to process the selected AR item,

• ensuring stable access to the Internet,

• availability and accessibility of augmented reality

objects on the chosen item

• possibility to work with these objects both in real-

time and asynchronous time mode.

The didactic requirements include:

• basic knowledge of a foreign language as a ba-

sis for students to perform tasks on the use of AR

technology,

• the formation of basic skills for learning a foreign

language using Internet resources, on the basis of

which the work with AR can be built,

• organisation of immersion in a foreign language

environment,

• using strategies for the development of productive

speech,

• thematic orientation of the content from the ﬁeld

of specialisation,

• development of speciﬁc tasks for understanding

the complexity of speech activity as an integral

part of professional functions of a specialist.

Since learning any foreign language in the aspect

of developing communicative skills of foreign lan-

guage professional communication has a number of

common features, the results of our study can and

should be used in the process of learning other for-

eign languages as well.

At the same time, in order to better understand

the transfer of knowledge through virtual and AR and

to be able to develop appropriate methods for using

these technologies, further research is needed. In

particular, it is advisable to compare augmented and

virtual reality technologies with traditional teaching

methods and other latest information processing tools,

as well as study and compare various methods that of-

fer augmented and virtual reality.

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