Avatar Languages Blog

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.

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

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 8:35 pm and is filed under ACTIVITIES, AUTHOR: HOWARD VICKERS, EVENTS, PEDAGOGY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.