Here is the brief description that is in the program…

How can teachers support mobile learning without using technology during class? The presentation explores how students can bring real-life, linguistic experiences into class and how teachers can help the students learn from these experiences. Through exploring case studies, you will gain both practical suggestions for activities and guiding pedagogical principles.

And here is the longer proposal…

This presentation demonstrates how students can use mobile devices to enhance their language learning without using technology during formal lessons.

The presenter reflects on his own language learning and his English teaching to show how mobile devices (cameras, MP3-players and cell-phones) can be used to record experiences beyond the classroom and then explore them linguistically in-class.

Students bring their everyday experiences to class, such as MP3 recordings of their real-life conversations, photos of menus/signs and videos/photos of everyday events. The lessons use language analysis to help students better understand these out-of-class experiences and simulations to prepare them for similar situations in the future.

This approach supports out-of-class (informal) learning and focuses on “just-in-time” learning. Students gain key skills such as ‘noticing’ new language and they become more autonomous learners.

The presentation focuses on real and practical activities for teachers to easily apply in their own lessons; yet it is also firmly grounded in pedagogy, including Dogme, dialogic learning, PhotoVoice, Task-based learning, and simulations.

The presentation demonstrates how technology can easily be used for language learning without the teacher or student needing to be familiar with any particular technology: the output, the dialogue and the learning take center stage.

My slot is at 1.30pm on Friday November 12 in the “West D” room (hotel plan at bottom of this PDF). The conference program is already online.

CoTESOL (The Colorado Affiliate of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) will hold its 34th Annual Fall Convention and Exhibition on November 12-13, 2010 at the Red Lion Hotel Denver Southeast, 3200 S Parker Rd, Aurora CO 80014.

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If you are going to be at CoTESOL, please do let me know. I am looking forward to getting to know other language educators in Colorado.

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.

This text starts with an overview of the Dogme approach and then continues by mapping out the different ways in which virtual worlds can be used for language learning. These two topics are then brought together to reflect on how Dogme can guide language teachers in using virtual worlds.

What is Dogme?
Dogme language teaching is a movement; it is a collective of teachers who have been inspired by the ideas of the Dogme film movement founded by Lars von Trier in 1995. Similar to the filmmakers, Dogme teachers are looking to return to the essence of a classroom by choosing to reduce or even avoid the use of technological tools and materials. Although virtual worlds are themselves high tech, a Dogme focus tends to take the activities in the direction of a lower tech approach that concentrates on the experiences that can lead to language emergence (or language acquisition). Followers of Dogme have generally moved away from using textbooks in class, partly as a desire to include real life materials and partly to reduce the role of third party content (text, audio, video) in the language lesson. In a Dogme lesson the students are encouraged to produce the content through their communication. This in turn leads to language learning opportunities in their striving to express themselves more clearly, fully and accurately. As such, this focus on communication reflects Dogme’s focus on social learning and so places the pedagogy within a constructivist context.

No Syllabus
Whereas a textbook strives to organize the learning into a program of themed units, Dogme teaching does not follow a syllabus, but instead prefers to allow the students’ needs and interests to set the pace and direction. In Dogme the syllabus emerges, or indeed is uncovered through the process of reflecting upon the language that emerges in class. Dogme language teaching is therefore a process, where the teacher responds to students’ needs rather than preemptively planning for them.

Principles
The Dogme approach is based upon some key principles that were set out by the movement’s founder, Scott Thornbury (ref). Learning is considered to take place through the interaction amongst the students and between the students and the teachers. This interaction enables knowledge to be co-constructed by the students rather than transmitted by the teacher to the students. In fact, by concentrating on conversation as the vehicle for learning, the knowledge is jointly assembled by the participants in what is termed ‘scaffolding’. As such, the teacher’s role is more akin to a “guide on the side” than that of a “stage on the stage”.

As already mentioned, communication is seen as the key vehicle for language learning, because it allows for affordances or language learning opportunities to arise in class. In this way language learning is considered to be not so much of a process of acquisition (as in second language acquisition) as more one of emergence: the language emerges from the students’ conversations in class. These conversations in effect become the primary content in the language lesson, and especially contribute to the class because they enable the introduction of the students’ beliefs, knowledge and experiences into the learning process. The question of content is particularly interesting in the context of virtual worlds because a virtual world, such as Second Life, offers experiences far more than it can offer third party content in the way that published materials do. In a conventional (classroom-based), Dogme lesson the content is preferably introduced (at least in part) by the students themselves. This more proactive role of the students helps to ensure that the content is engaging and relevant, which are key attributes to promote the communication that leads to language emergence and therefore language learning.

Virtual World Language Learning
In order to consider how Dogme can guide virtual world language education, the above overview will now be placed within the context of the various ways in which virtual worlds offer opportunities for language learning. I see four main types of experiences that the learner may have in a virtual world: social, immersive, creative and gaming.

1. Social: Almost all 3D virtual environments (a notable exception being Google Street View) are social spaces which allow the opportunity for social interactions for language learning. These social experiences could be formal group lessons or casual conversations with unknown residents of a 3D virtual world. This type of experience can be approached from a Dogme perspective to enable language emergence.
2. Immersive: All 3D virtual environments can offer users immersive experiences that can stimulate conversation for use in a Dogme lesson. In Second Life this could take the form of a virtual field trip to the moon or to a replica of a real life place such as Barcelona. The important aspect here is that immersive spaces are stimulating and engaging places and that this can promote the use and therefore development of a foreign language.
3. Creative: Some virtual worlds, allow the residents to customize their avatars, decorate their homes or even build entire cities, as is the case in Second Life. This can be drawn upon in lessons to allow students to describe their constructions and how they relate to them. If done as a collaborative task the process of building can itself be a communicative activity. Again, a Dogme approach is able to recognize the pedagogical value of these more creative activities.
4. Gaming: Many 3D virtual environments are in fact Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) that can also be used to further language learning. MMOGs often involve considerable negotiation and collaboration amongst players and therefore may also offer scope for Dogme inspired teaching. MMOGs for language learning is a relatively new field and there are few recorded examples of attempts to incorporate MMOGs in to language education; [name] is one of them. Second Life can also be used for game-like activities by virtue of its flexibility. Second Life offers educators to create immersive tasks that reward the student for the correct answer. In some respects this approach is a 3D version of an exercise book and there therefore seems to be limited scope to draw on Dogme ideas for guidance with this approach.

Although virtual environments are often thought of as being virtual worlds such as Second Life, there are many other 3D virtual spaces that offer many of these experiences. Google Street View is a case in point; it allows users to virtually visit real cities and see the buildings from the perspective of someone standing in the street. Google Street View is not a social space, but it allows for 3D virtual immersive experiences not so dissimilar to 3D virtual worlds. Another form of virtual environment is the browser-based 3d virtual space “Hangout” which allows users to customize their apartment and invite other avatars to share the space with them. Exit Reality is similar, but also allows users to surf the web in 3D with their avatar.

Blended Learning
The range of 3D virtual environments allows considerable choice in using a specific tool for the desired type of experience. In fact distinguishing between the types of experience (social, immersive etc) helps the educator (or indeed the learner) focus on selecting the right tool for the job. And it is therefore likely that a blend of tools (online of offline; 3D or 2D) will be employed. So blended learning is the most likely format given that virtual environments are excellent for experiential learning yet cannot compete with the flexibility and scope of the 2D web for content and especially text work.

Implications for Dogme teaching with virtual worlds
The immersive, social and creative experiences available with 3D virtual environments can be guided by the Dogme methodology to focus on the students’ own needs and interests and in doing so, to develop their language skills. The above presentations of the Dogme approach and the opportunities offered by virtual worlds have implications for the likely approach to Dogme teaching with virtual worlds.

Firstly the focus on experience leaves considerable scope for using virtual worlds both in class or drawing on them for homework activities. Since Dogme teaching is most interested in the enabling of communication (for learning), the location of that communication (in-world, in physical classrooms or through wiki-based collaboration) is less important. Secondly, given that the students’ engagement is key to enabling the conversations that lead to language emergence, they need to have the freedom to choose where they want to go (in a 3D virtual environment) and what they will do there.

The above implications suggest that a Dogme educator is unlikely to use pre-prepared materials and exercises in a virtual world. And as such, Dogme in virtual worlds has a light touch to technology, much as it does in the conventional classroom. A clear advantage of this approach is that both teachers and students need not be as expert in navigating the complexities of a virtual world such as Second Life. However, the main strength of Dogme is the natural tendency to focus on the strengths of 3D virtual environments – namely the social, immersive and creative experiences.

Dogme Activities in Virtual Worlds
Naturally there is a wide range of activities that could fit into a 3D virtual class inspired by Dogme. A few examples are suggested here…

• Social experiences such as meeting other students or even complete strangers in a 3D virtual space can be achieved through interviews, casual conversations, group discussions or even presentations at conferences held in virtual worlds. Some experiences indicate that social interaction is most productive when it has a clear purpose rather than just conversation practice.
• Students can be immersed in a specific environment, perhaps a place that exists in real life or somewhere imaginary, to stimulate conversation. This can be done through encouraging the student to respond to basic questions about the place or to perhaps elicit more complex responses such as emotional reactions to the 3D environment.
• A more creative approach can be taken by including the building of objects. Perhaps the construction of a house followed by guided tours or through group activities that likewise involve the creation of objects.
• Using MMOGs such as World of Warcraft remains a relatively unexplored field, but it seems likely that there are opportunities to engage students in either communicative and collaborative tasks or perhaps as a quest-like activity.

Role plays may also be done in immersive environments, such as a city tour using Google Street View. There are various examples of using Second Life for simulated training, such as by the Canadian Border Control and the Iowa emergency preparation. However, given the structured and planned nature of such training, it seems there may be less scope to apply Dogme ideas.

Dogme Inspired Lesson: an example
Video clips of a Dogme inspired lesson are embedded below to illustrate how 3D virtual worlds (in this case Second Life) can be integrated into (offline or 2D online) lessons. These clips show how the student is able to identify for himself which vocabulary and structures were key to matching the images and texts; the student was then able to draw on new or unfamiliar vocabulary to use in his own terms, when exploring restaurants in Second Life. Learning opportunities (such as reinforcing the pronunciation of the word ‘bank’) naturally arose with only gentle prompting by the teacher. As such, the lesson reflects the Dogme principles of language emergence, materials-light content and conversation-driven learning.

However, this lesson could have demonstrated greater Dogme influences had the student played a more active role in the selection of materials (from the Lonely Planet site in this case) and of the locations (the restaurants in Second Life) for the virtual field trip. The lesson could also have involved greater social experiences such as the student interviewing other Second Life residents (eg restaurant diners) or leading a group discussion on the topic. However the clips do serve to show the flexibility of virtual worlds and the scope to integrate specific experiences (be it social, immersive, creative or gaming) into Dogme inspired language lessons.

Some related links…

• Second Life as a Social Learning Environment
• Dogme 2.0: What “Teaching 2.0” Can Learn from Dogme ELT

Using second life for conversation practice focuses on the social experiences available with 3D virtual worlds. See “Dogme as a pedagogy for virtual worlds” for a presentation of other experiences (immersive, creative and gaming – alongside social) that can be gained in a 3D virtual world such as Second Life.

Virtual Worlds as Social Environments

Virtual worlds are social in two main ways. Firstly, it is possible to meet strangers (ie other residents who are unknown to us) at any time, day or night, in Second Life. Although Skype and other 2D online chat rooms have allowed this for a few years now, the sense of physical presence that 3D virtual worlds offer is quite new. It enables a much more natural way to meet new people, especially as it allows users to simply walk up to other users, or indeed, simply to walk away. The other way in which Second Life can be used to meet with others, is as a venue for planned meetings. In an educational setting, this could be a group lesson or a prearranged meeting amongst some students. Pierre’s presentation focuses on the first way, because he used Second Life to meet others in a ‘pub’ in Second Life to join in the conversations between the pub’s ‘customers’.

Pierre’s experiences are interesting because they offer the opportunity to hear directly from a language learner and to consider how to best support students such as Pierre. His experiences demonstrate the importance of motivation and of feeling confident in conversation practice – even in 3D virtual worlds, which offer users more anonymity than in real life interactions. However, it is worth looking at each point he made in detail.

1. Virtual worlds are engaging. In fact, they are so engaging for some as to be almost addictive. Clearly this is not the experience that everyone has, and many language learners do not wish to use Second Life. And perhaps tools such as Google Street View is immersive enough for these people. However for some it is very enjoyable and appealing.
2. Virtual Worlds are real. Indeed, they are sufficiently real for emotions such as self consciousness to be an issue.
3. Languages in virtual words are real. The use of English, in Pierre’s case was challenging, because it was fast and not always easy to understand. This made it difficult at times for Pierre to participate, much as casual conversation in real life can be.
4. Text chat is important. While the conversation is real, it is slightly different from real life, because there is the combination of both voice and text chat. Text is usually the first form of communication, with voices being used for more in depth conversations. The greater role of text chat allows language learners to review the chat history and even look up the meaning of words while text chatting.
5. Casual conversation is less motivating. Although the immersiveness of Second Life is certainly attractive and an enjoyable experience, general conversation practice is not in itself highly motivating and engaging.

There are some observations that can be made from these points. As language teachers we can draw on this to ensure social and communicative experiences in virtual worlds are as effective as possible.

1. There are psychological barriers that hinder students from using a virtual world for speaking in public.
2. Learners with lower levels (A1-B1) may find general conversations too difficult. This will be especially relevant for teachers of languages other than English, because the students are less likely to have a high level of proficiency.
3. Specific tasks or activities may assist with addressing the psychological barriers and supporting lower-level students.
4. Text chat may be a stepping stone. Even if text chat is not considered the intended form of communication, it may lead to the learner gaining familiarity and confidence to be able to move on to using voice.

An interesting aspect of setting specific tasks is that it bridges the gap between formal class activities and informal language practice. This means that what happens in class can support the activities out of class and vice-versa. Homework tasks can be prepared within class time and then subsequently drawn upon during lessons after the Second Life based work that is done for homework. It is worth mentioning that by integrating lesson work and homework, we are increasing the variety of opportunities to use Second Life for communicative language learning.

There are three main types of tasks that draw on the above…

1. Interviews with other Second Life residents can focus the conversation on a particular subject and give greater purpose to the dialogue. This can also be embedded within a broader project or quest-based work. Second Life has many themed islands, which help students find interviewees for a particular topic. If the subject has cultural aspects, then the student can visit the appropriate community or virtual city, such as “Second Krakow”, “Virtual Berlin” or Second Life Japan. In the future this may become a more natural activity if virtual worlds such as Twinity become more widespread.
2. Economic-based tasks such as visiting shops and offices in Second Life allow students to carry out tasks that mirror real life activities. Although there are many real life companies that no longer staff their Second Life offices or stores, there are many real life and Second Life shops that continue to have live assistance. When virtual worlds become more widespread and commonly used, this will be a much greater opportunity.
3. Events in 3D virtual worlds, such as the SLanguages conference, tutorials and even political demonstrations all offer the possibility to speak with others and to research a topic. Conferences and political events allow a focus on the language of opinion and persuasion.

Second Life is Real Life
All of these tasks draw their relevancy precisely because Second Life and other 3D virtual worlds are so real. Indeed Pierre’s presentation (within Second Life) was so motivating for him because others attended and engaged in discussion with him.

21st Century Skills
Aside from being real, virtual worlds are different and the different styles and habits of communication will likely become more widespread as virtual worlds themselves play an increasingly role in our lives. As such virtual world communication skills form a part of 21st Century Skills and so language education with virtual worlds takes on validity in its own right, in much the same way that cell phones, pagers and text chat have entered mainstream business and society.

The Teachers’ Role
The focus of this presentation and text has intentionally been on how independent language teachers can best use virtual worlds with their students. This approach to using Second Life is more low-tech than the development of islands specifically for language learning. Clearly such projects are not feasible for independent teachers, but more importantly this approach concentrates on the unique qualities of Second Life: namely that it is a social space that is well suited to certain aspects of language learning. The teachers’ role is therefore one of facilitating the students’ use of virtual worlds in a similar way as that envisaged in Dogme language teaching with virtual worlds. Although the teacher will play an active role in the development of the activities so too will the students to ensure that the use of Second Life is engaging and motivating.

Dogme and Task-Based Learning
There are opportunities to embed the activities in a Dogme or TBL (Task-Based Learning) approach with the Second Life social activities either being an experience that leads to language emergence (in the case of a Dogme lesson) or as a task that is intended to concentrate on a particular aspect of the target language (in the case of TBL). Although the methodology could differ the Second Life activity itself would be possibly quite similar. It is the teaching style that would perhaps differ most, with Dogme being more reflective and TBL being more planned and intentional.

Some related links…

• Dogme for Virtual World Language Learning
• SurReal Quests for Language Learning

Photo of Dennis’ Villa in Second Life (image by Sanja).

Carol Rainbow kindly recorded the audio of the meeting and you can listen to it on Blip.TV or download/play this mp3 recording of the discussion about Augmented Reality Language Learning in Second Life.

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.

Title: Second Life as a Social Learning Environment
Presenters [avatar names]: Howard Vickers & Pierre Moussy [ Howie Yoshikawa & Mieszko Beck ]
Second Life offers language learners a place for meeting others to practice a foreign language. This two-part presentation hears from a language learner about his experiences in Second Life and from a language educator about the lessons learned for encouraging conversation practice in virtual worlds.

• What are the advantages of using Second Life for conversation practice?
• What are the experiences of language learners? What are their motivations?
• Where do they see limitations to this approach? What are the differences between the in-world voice system and text chatting?
• What can we learn from learners about how best to promote fluency through conversation practice in Second Life?

Time: 05.00 – 06.00 (Second Life time = PDT)

Date: Saturday 9 May 2009

Location: EduNation III Amphitheatre in Second Life.

Hope to see you there!

Some related links…

• Scott Thornbury in Second Life
• Jeremy Harmer in 3D – Interview in Second Life
• SLanguages 2009: Dogme ELT for Virtual Worlds

Title: Dogme ELT as a Pedagogy for Language Education in Virtual Worlds
Presenter [avatar name]: Howard Vickers [ Howie Yokishawa ]
The Dogme ELT movement promotes the use of real life materials in the language classroom as a basis for stimulating communication to promote opportunities for language learning. And as such Dogme ELT questions the use of conventional textbooks. Language coursebooks have anyhow yet to appear in virtual worlds such as Second Life, so how can language educators draw on this methodology for their in-world teaching?

• What is Dogme ELT and where is it of most relevance for language education in virtual worlds?
• Examples of virtual world based activities that draw on the Dogme ELT principles.
• How can virtual world activities be integrated into online or offline classes?

The presentation will draw on recent blog articles (below) although it will focus on virtual worlds rather than web 2.0 in general.

• http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/dogme-elt-web20-dogme20/
• http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/relevance-dogme-web-20/

Time: 18.30 – 19.30 (Second Life time = PDT)

Date: Friday 8 May 2009

Location:  EduNation III Seminar Space in Second Life.

Hope to see you there!

Some related links…

• Scott Thornbury in Second Life
• Jeremy Harmer in 3D – Interview in Second Life
• SLanguages 2009: SL as a Social Learning Environment

Jeremy Harmer gave a presentation last year in Second Life (as part of the EduCation@EduNation series) about how teachers perceive their work and their teaching practice. It will be interesting to see his thoughts about Second Life language education in this interview with Nik Peachey..

Some notes from Nik Peachey’s blog post on this event…

[interview with] teacher, teacher trainer, author and ELT guru Jeremy Harmer. Jeremy’s books and writings have introduced a generation of teachers to ELT. He is also a regular conference speaker and musician.

His writing credits include How to Teach Writing, How to Teach English and The Practice of English Language Teaching.

Venue is EduNation II (http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20II/211/230/21).

Some related links…

• Scott Thornbury in Second Life
• SLanguages 2009: Dogme ELT for Virtual Worlds
• SLanguages 2009: SL as a Social Learning Environment

Dogme and Second Life are a very interesting combination and have a lot to offer each other. It will be extremely interesting to listen to Scott Thornbury’s comments on virtual worlds.

Some notes from Nik Peachey’s blog post on this event…

His writing credits include several award-winning books for teachers on language and methodology. He is also series editor for the Cambridge Handbooks for Teachers (CUP). He was also the co-founder of the dogme ELT group, whose archived website, called Teaching Unplugged, can be found [on the ThornburyScott.com website].

Scott is currently Associate Professor of English Language Studies at the New School in New York, where he teaches on an on-line MATESOL program.

Venue is EduNation II (http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20II/211/230/21).

Some related links…

• Dogme 2.0: What “Teaching 2.0” Can Learn from Dogme ELT
• Relevance, Motivation and Communication: Connecting Dogme and Web 2.0
• Are Textbooks Still Relevant in a Web 2.0 World?
• Jeremy Harmer in 3D – Interview in Second Life
• SLanguages 2009: Dogme ELT for Virtual Worlds

The Cardiff Online website is now live at: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009

The British Council and IATEFL have launched the Cardiff Online website which offers web coverage of this year’s 43rd IATEFL Annual Conference in Cardiff.

The Cardiff Online website allows remote participants to take part in one of the world’s biggest ELT conferences through a variety of resources including:

• Video recordings of selected sessions
• Audio recordings of selected sessions
• Live streamed plenaries and events
• Moderated special interest discussion forums
• Chat sessions
• Blogs and photo albums

Last year, 1,600 teachers and trainers attended the Exeter IATEFL Conference, and over 5,000 participated online.

This year we expect a much larger audience, and this is a real opportunity to take part in the biggest online ELT training community.

The Cardiff Online website gives you an opportunity to share ideas with teachers all around the world. There will be interactive coverage with video presentations, reports and interviews ‘almost live’ from Cardiff.

It is organized by…

• Gavin Dudeney – Honorary Secretary, IATEFL
• Julian Wing – British Council Cardiff Online Project Manager
• Nik Peachey – IATEFL Online Editor

Feel free to embed this on your blog and link to www.slanguages.net.

This presentation is also available on Scribd and in the next few weeks it will be available in a dozen languages…

SLanguages 2009 Conference (Eng)