Collaborative Ubiquitous Learning and Multimodal Communication in English Language Courses

Abstract

This chapter builds on the premise that English language (EL) courses in higher education must be properly designed under a collaborative ubiquitous learning (CUL) ecosystem providing adequate content and experiential learning tasks that correspond with multimodal communication oriented to professional and academic purposes. Firstly, it explores the most recent pedagogical advances of a systematic bibliographical review regarding CUL, multimodality, and EL courses in higher education. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the academic literature, extracted from the databases Web of Science and Scopus, was based on the most significant scientific studies (103 publications) and the most relevant bibliometric indicators from 1995 to 2022. Secondly, this review offers some pedagogical reflections and innovative research lines regarding multimodal and collaborative ubiquitous learning in EL courses. This pedagogical scaffolding addresses students' needs onsite and offsite so that communicative real-life or professionally based situations are built in a CUL environment.