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Piccolo Mondo: Virtual Worlds for Language Learning

Explore the potential of Second Life for language learning. Discover the benefits, barriers, and immersive experiences that can enhance language acquisition. Includes a demo and useful resources.

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Piccolo Mondo: Virtual Worlds for Language Learning

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  1. Piccolo Mondo: Virtual worlds for language learning: a look at Second Life by Kate Borthwick and Ann Jeffery, University of Southampton

  2. Session outline • What is Second Life? • Our interest in Second Life for language learning • How we got started in SL • Benefits and barriers • Demo

  3. What is Second Life? • Virtual, 3-D world • More than 2,700,000 people registered • Social networking service • Rich environment • Free, but a cost for building/owning land

  4. Our interest in SL for language learning • Users can create content for others to access and use • Over 100 ‘islands’ created for educational use • Research at an early stage • General potential for language learning

  5. La mia seconda vita • My perspective of the adult learner • 2 main difficulties : • getting to classes • Practising Italian conversation • Wanted to explore SL community • What were SL communities actually like? • Were there other language learners? • Would it help me to learn Italian? • Short overview of my experience

  6. Starting out • Choose your name from: • A Linden surname and a personal forename • This affects how people respond to you • My Italian name means Italian people speak to me • Create a basic avatar • Learn the essential movement controls • You decide how you want to look. • Red hair because it often gets a ‘bad press’, green eyes because I could • Unusual combination in SL, gets attention!

  7. Growingup • Overcome shyness, reserve, gain confidence • SL can be a real social leveller • I found friendly, helpful people who have actively helped out • Friends from across the world, across different time zones.

  8. Learning Italian So how has Second Life helped me with my Italian?

  9. My experience • In 4 days, I needed to extend my vocabulary etc. • Dictionaries, verb tables and grammar books. • Translating songs, making jokes, cultural concepts, phrases and sayings. • Now faster with fewer mistakes

  10. Teacher’s perspectiveMettiamo i mobili? A learning activity • Uses the culture of SL • Having land and creating a home • Studentscreate a personal space, • Choose and move their furniture • Could support language learning functions: • Learn directions, position and types of furniture. • Assessment • Screenshots • Recorded dialogues • Reflective diary • Finished house

  11. Q: Dov’é metto il divano?A : La metta in salone. Vicino al fuori

  12. Are there other benefits? • Learning styles can be explored • Visual and kinesthetic are fairly evident, but auditory styles could prove interesting. • Students acquire higher-level skills • such as negotiation, intercultural communication, social, personal and creative skills.

  13. The environment • Endless possibilities: • snowboarding, sailing, waterslides, dancing… • Exploring is one of the most fun things you can do in Second Life. You can do just about anything. • How does it benefit language learning?

  14. Conversation • Sailing in Nantucket - a themed sim • New environments promote new topics of conversation • The conversation turns to boats, and Venice. • Notecard on the bottom right shows how I include accents.

  15. Benefits and barriers • Definite cost in time and effort • Some investment of money • It takes time to get started • Technical issues • Interface issues

  16. Benefits and barriers • On the positive side: • Immersive • Difficult to dip in (very sociable) • Hours spent practising Italian • The limit does appear to be your imagination • Friendly, sociable, collaborative • Rather like the www in the beginning… • Clunky, quirky but undeniably fun.

  17. Overall learning experience • Immersive • Collaborative • Active learning • Role-play • Speed of learning • Importance of cultural knowledge

  18. Demo • A quick view of the environment, the ‘learning centre’, the informal space where we meet up. • Chat in-world with Glenn Hardaker, University of Huddersfield

  19. Useful links and articles • Find out about Second Life at http://secondlife.com/ • Second Life: the official Guide (2007) by Rymaszewski, M., Wagner, J.A., Wallace, M., Winters, C., Ondrejka, C., Batstone-Cunningham, B., and Second Life residents. Pub: Wiley • A useful article about language learning with Second Life by Vance Stevens, http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej39/int.html • The University of California IT Guidance Committee provides a site of useful Second Life information links at: http://www.ucop.edu:8080/display/SecondLife/Articles+and+Papers

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