This dissertation is to explore the academic efficacy and relevance of two comparatively new technologies, video games and Virtual Reality (VR), how they relate to an older cultural phenomenon, theater, and how a discussion of both topics can result in a better understanding of how to supply students in the classroom with the chance to improve…

In the last decade, the educational field, in general, has experienced increasing interest in applying augmented reality (AR) for educational purposes. Studies have shown that when AR is effectively applied in education, it can increase students' learning interest and concentration (Zhang et al., 2014), reduce cognitive overload (Bower et al.,…

Learners must simultaneously learn a grammar and a lexicon from observed forms, yet some structures that the grammar and lexicon reference are unobservable in the acoustic signal. Moreover, these "hidden" structures interact: the grammar maps an underlying form to a particular interpretation. Learning one structure depends on learning…

Studies of informal language learning and self-instruction with online materials have recently come into prominence. However, those studies are predominantly focused on more commonly taught languages and there is a gap in the literature on less commonly taught languages (LCTL), precisely the languages that are often studied outside of formal…