Philology students from the Faculty FPSC of SumDU visited the laboratory of virtual and augmented reality "Ulab". The journey into the virtual universe took place within the discipline "Innovative educational technologies in foreign language teaching", led by Alla Krasulia, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Germanic Philology.
During the class, future interpreters were able to explore the topic "Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) as a means of motivating students to build sociolinguistic competence" visually and learn about the peculiarities of implementing edutainment (technology combining learning and entertainment) in education.
The opportunity to experience VR and AR learning programmes themselves gave the students thorough insights into the prospects of using the latest information technology in learning.
Student translator Yuliia Bohomol says:
I wasn't quite aware of VR's opportunities for learning before. In the class, I saw that it was possible to train pronunciation, communicate with "real" native speakers, distinguish accents, and even practice grammar. And projecting stressful situations in the virtual world can help to reduce the emotional response to similar situations in real life when it comes, for example, to simultaneous interpretation. In my opinion, visual content will always be better for understanding than textual content, so we should definitely integrate virtual reality into foreign language learning.
Getting acquainted with augmented reality technology has also become interesting for future philologists. Student Viktoriia Vasylets says it's an absolute fantasy.
-Such features of virtual reality as immersion and interaction help increase interest in learning any subject," says student Kateryna Tarasenko.
One of the basic ideas behind STEAM education is the combination of multidisciplinary сompetences and tools. As the practical experience of students translators at the Faculty FPSC of SumDU has shown, the combination of such different fields as "Translation Studies" and "Computer Technology" provides a practical impetus for acquiring cross-disciplinary skills.
