Virtual Language Learning

Khaled Alharbi

Introduction

• Virtual worlds are playing an important role in education, especially in language learning. By March 2007 it was estimated that over 200 universities or academic institutions were involved in Second Life (Cooke-Plagwitz, p. 548).

Introduction

• Linden Lab Vice President of Platform and Technology Development, claimed in 2009 that "Language learning is the most common education-based activity in Second Life". Many mainstream language institutes and private language schools are now using 3D virtual environments to support language learning.

Introduction

• Virtual world started in the adventure games and simulations of the 1970s.

• Since 2007 a series of conferences known as SLanguages have taken place, bringing together practitioners and researchers in the field of language education in Second Life for a 24-hour event to celebrate languages and cultures within the 3D virtual world.

Approaches to language education in virtual worlds

• Almost all virtual world educational projects use a blended learning approach whereby the language learners are exposed to a 3D virtual environment for a specific activity or time period. Such approaches may combine the use of virtual worlds with other online and offline tools, such as 2D virtual learning environments (e.g. Moodle) or physical classrooms. Moodle, for example, is a learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a single robust, secure and integrated system to create personalized learning environments.

Approaches in virtual language learning

• Immersive: Immersive experiences draw on the ability to be surrounded by a certain (real or fictitious) environment that can stimulate language learning.

• Social: Almost all 3D virtual spaces are inherently social environments where language learners can meet others, either to informally practice a language or to participate in more formal classes.

• Creative: A less-developed approach to language learning in virtual worlds is that of constructing objects as part of a language learning activity. There is currently little documentation of such activities.

6 ways in virtual educational activity

• Exploring: learners explore a virtual world’s locations and communities as fieldwork for class.

• Collaborating: learners work together within a virtual world on collaborative tasks.

• Being: learners explore themselves and their identity through their presence in a virtual world, such as through role-play.

• Building: learners construct objects within a virtual world.• Championing: learners promote real life causes through activities

and presentations in a virtual world.• Expressing: learners represent activities within a virtual world to

the outside world, through blogs, podcasts, presentations and videos.

SL virtual classroom

• Hundsberger (2009, p. 18) defines a virtual classroom thus:

"A virtual classroom in SL sets itself apart from other virtual classrooms in that an ordinary classroom is the place to learn a language whereas the SL virtual classroom is the place to practice a language. The connection to the outside world from a language lab is a 2D connection, but increasingly people enjoy rich and dynamic 3D environments such as SL as can be concluded from the high number of UK universities active in SL."

Constructivist approaches

• Constructivist approaches are applied to virtual world language learning because of the scope for learners to socially co-construct knowledge, in spheres of particular relevance to the learner.

• Some examples of these approaches are:-

Task-based language learning(TBLL)

• This approach has been commonly applied to virtual world language education. Task-based language learning focuses on the use of authentic language and encourages students to do real life tasks using the language being learned. Tasks can be highly transactional, where the student is carrying out everyday tasks such as visiting the doctor in Second Life.

Language Villages

• The concept of real-life language villages has been replicated within virtual worlds to create a language immersion environment for language learners in their own country. The Dutch Digital School has built two virtual language villages, Chatterdale (English) and Parolay (French).

Virtual Tourism

• Language learning can take place in public spaces within virtual worlds. This offers greater flexibility with locations and students can choose the locations themselves, which enables a more constructivist approach.

• The wide variety of places in Second Life, e.g. Barcelona, Berlin, London and Paris, offers opportunities for language learning through virtual tourism. Students can engage in conversation with native speakers, take part in conducted tours in different languages and even learn how to use Second Life in a language other than English.

CAVE technology

• A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) is an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environment where projectors are directed to three, four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube. The CAVE is a large theatre that sits in a larger room. The walls of the CAVE are made up of rear-projection screens, and the floor is made of a down-projection screen. High-resolution projectors display images on each of the screens by projecting the images onto mirrors which reflect the images onto the projection screens. The user will go inside the CAVE wearing special glasses to allow the 3D graphics that are generated by the CAVE to be seen. With these glasses, people using the CAVE can actually see objects floating in the air, and can walk around them, getting a realistic view of what the object would look like when they walk around it.

CAVE technology

• O'Brien, Levy & Orich (2009) describe the viability of CAVE and PC technology as environments for assisting students to learn a foreign language and to experience the target culture in ways that are impossible through the use of other technologies.