JUEGO Y ROBÓTICA. PERSPECTIVAS ACTUALES DESDE LA DIDÁCTICA DE LENGUAS Y CULTURAS

Recently, the evolution of processes and means of production has given rise to the “fourth industrial revolution” (4IR), marked by the acceleration of technological innovation as well as by the preponderant role of artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, the Internet of Things and Big Data. The 4IR forces us to reconsider the basic principles of education in general and foreign language teaching/learning in particular. In this paper, we will explore the current perspectives of robotics from the foreign language teaching and learning field, with a special emphasis on the theme of game and play. After underlining the relationship between 4RI and the so-called 21st century competencies, we will briefly examine the effects of 4IR in foreign language teaching and learning field and mention the potential educational roles assigned to the most recent information and communication technologies within the previously described context. We will then turn our attention to an as yet little studied area at the crossroads of foreign language teaching and learning field, robotics and game studies: we will present and discuss some of the existing developments and suggest some possible research directions.