Achieveing the Ying-Yang in language teaching and learning in virtual worlds

ACHIEVING THE YING-YANG IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING IN VIRTUAL WORLDS Cristina Palomeque Joan-Tom às Pujolà 43rd ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL IATEFL CONFERENCE CARDIFF 31ST MARCH - 4TH APRIL 2009

contents Context & Beliefs Students’ & Teachers’ backpacks Digital Student & digital teacher MUVEs as VLEs Language teaching in SL Simulations

context

not a videogame serious game

SL - as a VLE Social dimension Interaction: environment, objects, avatars Sense of presence Multimodal communication

“ psychologically held understandings, premises, or prepositions about the world that are felt to be true” Richardson 1996 beliefs

sts’ backpack: beliefs Beliefs may have a profound influence on learning behavior. (Cotterall, 1995) Learners ’ belief systems cover a wide range of issues and can influence learners ’ motivation to learn, their expectations about language learning, their perceptions about what is easy or difficult about language, as well as the kind of learning strategies they favor. ( Richards & Lockhart, 1996:52 )

Sts’ comments + Traditional

The environment is fantastic

A stimulating and enjoyable way to learn a language

Props and scenes helped me remember the vocabulary

- I would like a class that prepared for tests like the TOEFL test - I don’t think it is useful to speak with other students if the teacher is not listening / work in groups - the classes I like best are grammar related + experimental with VLE

sts’ comments

T’s backpack: beliefs Teachers’ deep-rooted beliefs about how language are learned will prevade their classroom actions more than a particular methodology they are told to adopt or coursebook they follow. (Williams & Burden, 1997)

T’s comments What I find most challenging about SL is that I don’t know how sts feel about the tasks. I cannot ‘read’ their faces. We had a lot of fun in class because sts were very engaged in the task and afterwards we had a very interesting discussion about their learning preferences. Today I could have used the SL environment more. I would not have liked to use it as if it were Skype because SL offers much more.

Digital Teacher Digital Student

Traditional - expects teachers to pour knowledge - is dependent on the teacher - feels safer with grammar lessons - prefers routines to unexpected situations

builds knowledge through interaction with teacher & peers

knows how to work autonomously

enjoys engaging in meaningful lang. tasks

is open to the unexpected

enjoys learning by “ playing ”

Innovative Digital Student

Innovative Traditional

transferring methodology from the real life class, either grammar-based or CLT-based

not exploiting the MUVE potential enough

having a “ digital accent ”

- experimenting new MUVE methodology - exploiting the MUVE to find its learning potential and effectiveness - thinking as a “ digital native” Digital Teacher

Type of Ts & Sts in SL

language te aching in SL Course: - integrative skills - experiential learning - situational - virtual immersion

language te aching in SL

Independent modules:

separate skills

(conversation practise)

- separate language systems

(grammar lessons)

simulations Objectives - not explicit enough? Learner/teacher training for language learning in a MUVE

Simulations in the FL class situational PBL / CLIL / learning by doing cognitive challenge not a role-play different type of assessment

Traditional simulation structure

Adapting traditional simulations to language learning in MUVEs briefing simulation debriefing informative feedback explicit language objectives enabling tasks

To achieve the ying-yang