This document describes a project using Second Life to teach foreign language courses at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. It began with a small group exploring Second Life in 2008 and expanded to include language courses for French, Spanish, and Italian from 2011-2012. Students met in Second Life for 2-hour sessions twice a week over 5-10 weeks and conducted activities like interviews, discussions, and role plays with native speakers. Student feedback was generally positive about being immersed in the virtual environment, though some struggled with the interface or found early morning sessions distracting. The document concludes with recommendations for supporting such virtual world language education projects.

1. Second Life: The
next best thing to
being there?
Victoria University of Wellington, New
Zealand

2.  SLENZ project group on SL – meeting 2008
 Arch & Design school had an island but barely used
 Presented SL to library and ITS management in 2009
 Brown bag lunches with guest speakers to librarians
 2011 Initiated a project with Library Technology Services
 Presented SL to anyone who would listen
 Really kicked in at SLanguages 2009
 Found a helpful, open and passionate Community of
Practice
 Found a home in both Edunation and Arcachon
 Taught French, explored sims and read research
literature

3. PROJECT BACKGROUND
 French 2nd year literature course 2011 – trim1 – no show
up
 French 2nd year language course 2012
 – trim 1 – 3 students Lecturer‟s back up
 Optional – voluntary (intrinsic motivation)
 Connexion from home
 Started in Trim1 over 5 weeks
 Twice a week, 2 hours sessions
 Oral presentation in front of class 10% final mark
 Two reliable French helpers from France,
 Explored Paris mainly (as part of the course outline)
 No homework just show up
 VERY Positive feedback both from students and lecturer

4. 2ND PILOT PROJECT
 Extended to Spanish level A2 and Italian Level A1
 Funding for graphic cards and tutor training
 One language tutor for each language, no experience
 One month preparation time and equipment
 Over 10 weeks, 1h1/2 per session
 In the lab but some students connected from home
 Early morning
 Average time 2 hours prep

5.  “To provide a social and contextualised
environmentwhere learning is viewed
as a social process whereby knowledge
is co-constructed”.
(Wenger and Lave, 1991) and (Herrington and Oliver,
1995)
 To bridge the gap between the theoretical
learning in the formal instruction of the
classroom and the real-life application of the
knowledge in the work environment
Next stage:
With an Experiential approach
(Kolb, 1984)

6. 1. Learning environments (Herrington and Oliver,
1995)
 Provide authentic context
 Provide authentic activities
 Provide access to expert performances and the modelling
of processes
 Provide multiple roles and perspectives
 Support collaborative construction of knowledge
 Provide coaching and scaffolding at critical times
 Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed
 Speaking the language of instruction
 Integrated assessment

7. Themes:
Cafés and food, show business, philosophy, arts and
fashion
 Authentic context
Arcachon, Paris, Sims dedicated to arts, and holodeck
 Activities and articulation
Interviews and discussions with native speakers
 Expert performance, modelling, coaching
Native speakers, tutor and SL facilitator
 Integrated assessment:
6minutes per student, oral presentation 20% final mark

8. Themes:
Shopping for food, clothes, giving opinions, directions
 Authentic context
Arcachon, Venezia, Napoli, Museum Island, Art Sims
 Activities and articulation
Role plays, questions on location interaction with objects
 Expert performance, modelling, coaching
Native speakers, tutor and SL facilitator
 Integrated assessment: none

9. Course Themes:
Business, technology, ideologies, hispanic culture etc..
2 out of 3 students abandoned after the 2nd class
 Authentic context
Machu Pichu, Opera Joven, SLVM, Costa Rica, Insituto
Espanol
 Activities and articulation
Discussions, questions on location, interaction with
objects
 Expert performance, modelling, coaching
Native speakers, tutor and SL facilitator
 Integrated assessment:
none but student might choose to write or report to the
class orally

10.  6 respondents out of 12 to a quick survey for this conference
 2 had played video games before (GTA and the Sims)
 None practise language online
 Getting used to the interface on a scale of 5 (1 = very easy) 1x1, 2x2, 2x3
 For most, customising their avatar was difficult (x4)
but 5 enjoyed customising it (identity)
 Despite issues with camera controls (3) and that technology was
disruptive (5)
they all felt immersed exploring the environment and listening to people
 2 felt too distracted with the environment to focus on language and also 3
expressed the fact that sessions were too early
 3 have made friends with people other than their group
 All felt it was a positive learning curve, 2 refreshing,
1 useful, 1 scary and 1 boring (multiple select possible)

11.  Really difficult when you are not tech
savy. Sometimes things happened to
environment that you can‟t change
back then you miss the whole

conversation because you try to fix it” - This is just a question of taste, but I
French B1 dislike the realism of the sims
because the illusion is inevitably
shattered by the unrealistic
 There was a feeling of natural behaviour of the environment,
(even though it‟s vitual!) and objects,” - French B1
authentic communication (did not
feel forced to participate) –
Spanish B1  I liked having the other native
speakers there, the only thing I
didn't enjoy was having second life
classes on things we hadn't gone
over in class – Italian A1

12.  Together with the quality of selected
guests, the variety of tools at
disposition and the spontaneous
involvement from students, I find the
sessions to have efficiently led the
group to reach the courses goals and Students have appropriately
achievements. practised their listening skills and
developed adequate strategies of
comprehension (using virtual
contextual elements)
 Being a total beginner implied for me
to go through a process of initiation,
which I must say was “smooth” and
intuitive.
 Despite a certain “reluctance” inspired
by a background of more „classical
academic approaches,”.

13. Recommendations
Off-World
 ITS support (firewall ports, hardware and broadband issues)
 Department support, VWs take a lot of preparation
 Inform and prepare your students well
 Inform and prepare your guest speakers well
In-world
 Plan at least two training sessions (interface, camera, avatar etc)
 Know the environment(s) well to coach them well
 Get them to explore with a mission (short instructions)
 Get them to interact with people you trust
 Don‟t lose contact with them – group management
 Multi-task (look and act while delivering and think ahead)
 Have a plan B (an exploration often works when thought through)

14. QUESTIONS?
Touch the rotating box to get
 the references
 the slides of this session