Local keynote: Integrating technology in language pedagogy in Greece: Developments, challenges and perspectives

Local keynote: Integrating technology in language pedagogy in Greece: Developments, challenges and perspectives

Wednesday 25/05 12:00-13:00

Main Hall

Abstract.

From correspondence education to the contemporary pandemic-induced online learning, technology has played an important role in education, pushing it forward and helping it reach and expand its potential. Through distance learning platforms, language learning applications, AR and VR technology, and many more, technology has been organically integrated in modern-day students’ and educators’ lives, enhancing the quality of their educational experience. Though there is still a lot of ground to cover, Greece has marked great progress in the field during the last decades. A variety of Master’s degrees are offering expertise in the fields of ICT and digital media in education, digital educational programmes are being designed to transform students into novice programmers, while the “flipped classroom” method brings students in the centre of the learning experience thanks to the advances of modern technology. More recently, the global pandemic has rendered technology an integral and indivisible part of the educational experience. The “Digital School” initiative along with an extensive variety of digital material, platforms, and archives were designed in its context. Finally, from digitally enriched language textbooks to online language proficiency assessment and the innovations of gamification, the field of language learning and language pedagogy has been enriched and advanced by technology.

About the speaker.

Thomaï Alexiou is an Associate Professor at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her expertise is in early foreign language learning, SLA pedagogy and material development for young learners. She has extensive experience in distance education and teacher training in Greece and abroad. She has been coordinator and tutor at the Hellenic Open University and the Center of Greek Language (distance modules) since 2010. She has participated in various research funded and awarded projects (DysTEFL, CLILPrime, PEAP, Teacher education in Technology-PAKE, T4E, etc) and she has authored teacher training material and textbooks for children learning English as a foreign language. As of 2021, she’s the Academic Leader of EAN project, a funded project for the introduction of EFL in pre-primary schools in Greece.