Language Acquisition in a Virtual World
Neill Wylie
A large body of research points to the benefits of language teaching via Virtual Worlds. Virtual Worlds can be described as 3D social networks where users navigate rich landscapes using avatars. The idea is that when students create an avatar of their own, something called the ‘disinhibition effect’ takes place which provides students with a level of abstraction they do not normally have in the classroom. This perceived level of abstraction can motivate shy students to communicate more thus giving them more practice in the target language. Some studies even suggest that a Virtual World is the next best thing to actually being in the country of the target language – something we as teachers cannot replicate in a 2-hour class.
For research I am conducting with the University of Nottingham, I bought a world in a Virtual World named Active Worlds. Active Worlds has been running since the nineties and though it has seen a great decline in users over the past 20 years, it is an excellent environment to enable language acquisition. In my world, LangCult (the cult of languages ;)), I have built a Language and Culture centre as well an Island of Tranquillity, a Beach Bar, a Wooden Shack and many more items of interest for the students to explore. In December 2018, I received formal approval to work with UCM’s IELTS Foundation students in my Virtual World. I have created a course consisting of five missions, which take between 30 minutes and 1 hour each. The course is based around Games-Based Learning and each week the students must complete missions that are closely tailored to their current study. I have created a Leader board so students can compete and this has really improved their motivation. Although it is early days, I have noticed an increase in the number of utterances the students make and also a genuine interest in this novel way to learn a language!
Following on from the potential success of this study, some colleagues from the Language Centre, Internationalisation and SSC hope to attain a Diversity and Inclusivity grant so that we can take this concept to a greater audience. This time, instead of focusing solely on language acquisition, we would focus on Intercultural Communicative Competence – a field in which we have excellent experience on the team via the likes of Denise McAllister, Sarah Crielesi, Katja Verbruggen and Marieke van Paassen.
We hope to continue to contribute to UM’s innovation in education in the future!