In a recent lesson with Pierre we read some tweets together by the CNN correspondent Nicole Lapin. It was Pierre’s suggestion that we look at her twitter page because he was having some difficulty understanding the tweets.
At SLanguages 2009 I gave a presentation on Dogme language teaching and its relevance to virtual world language education. Here is the presentation as text…
I have been using virtual worlds such as Second Life for approximately two years and during this time I have done some interesting and engaging activities with students. However, I have also being looking for methodologies to draw upon to ensure that these activities are pedagogically sound and beneficial to the students’ learning. More recently I have taken a closer look at Dogme ELT as a pedagogy to guide these virtual world activities and Dogme has stood out as an approach that has much to offer virtual world language learning because of its focus on real life communication as the basis for developing language competencies.
One of our students, Pierre Moussy, has been using the 3d virtual world, Second Life, to gain conversation practice. His presentation below was given at the SLanguages conference (for language education in virtual worlds); you can listen to Pierre’s presentation and follow his PowerPoint. Pierre’s talk is especially interesting because it gives us some insights into how languages learners actually use second life to talk with others in a foreign language. It also shows us how they benefit from such experiences and how language teachers can better guide their students so that they gain the most from virtual worlds.
The event took place at Dennis’ villa on EduNation – so thank you Dennis for hosting the meeting. And thank you to all for attending and making it such a interesting conversation.
I think you can only hear 3 voices (most participated via text-chat within Second Life) and they are of Dennis Newson, Scott Thornbury and me.
Talking with Graham Stanley last month and seeing Pierre Moussy’s G2 Android smartphone in action got me thinking more seriously about mobile learning for languages. Some of the G2 phone’s features make use of augmented reality, which seems to fundamentally change (indeed improve!) the possibilities of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL).
This blog post is an attempt to sketch out some initial thoughts on how Augmented Reality Language Learning (ARLL) could be used in a student centered way. Both Task-Based Learning (TBL) and Dogme approaches seem to offer guidance, as do the experiences with Virtual World Language Learning (VWLL). The focus here is very much on mobile access to geo-tagged Wikipedia (Wikitude) and location-based social networking (Google Latitude and BrightKite).
Avatar Languages has yet to develop ARLL lessons, so this blog post merely looks at what may well be possible.
What is Augmented Reality?
AR is the combination of real-world and computer-generated data so that computer generated objects are blended into real time projection of real life activities.
Wikitude – An Immersive Wikipedia
Wikitude is a program that overlays information in Wikipedia about physical places onto the camera screen of a mobile phone.
Wikitude places markers and summaries on the screen exactly where you can see the relevant building or location. These markers also link to the relevant Wikipedia article, which then opens up in the phone’s internet browser (via a 3G connection).
I intended to write this blog as a follow up to the one on students writing for Wikipedia – and I checked back to see when it was written – almost exactly a year ago. Since then quite a few articles have been written by our students for Wikipedia. And now we are looking at other wiki sites, such as Wikitravel…
Language learners often travel and so they have plenty of travel experiences to write about. Even those students who aren’t travelling much can write about where they live or another place they know well.
Virtual worlds such as Second Life can be easily added to classroom-based or online language lessons. Virtual worlds offer a 3D immersive experience to be included as an optional extra.
The previous blog post on Dogme 2.0 sketches out how the web is becoming increasingly a normal part of our lives as well as an enormous source of both language learning content and opportunities to interact with others as part of the learning process.However, it is really the questions of relevance, meaning and motivation that are the key links between Dogme ELT and web 2.0.
If we see learning as a process of constructing meaning, and therefore one where relevance is key to enabling the learner to both find and create meaning, then the actual medium (be it online or offline) is not necessarily so significant.What seems more pertinent is the ability to create excitement and engagement such that language learning opportunities surface in class.
Google Maps must surely be changing the way we use maps – especially now that it offers “Street View” for several countries. Street View allows you to see what the streets actually look like, thanks to a Google car driving around lots of cities and photographing almost every street at intervals of every few yards. It also offers language learning new immersive opportunities.
A Street View of Madrid is embedded below, so you can click on it and drag the image around to take a look.
In today’s lesson with a student from Madrid, he showed me around parts of the city using this Street View function. Ruben gave me directions to guide me and then described the locations.
At Avatar Languages we have started to encourage students to add to Wikipedia articles. We have chosen Simple English Wikipedia, which is a version of the online encyclopaedia that is written in a simplified style of English for non-native speakers. (more…)
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