2nd Life for Language Practice
Like Facebook, 2nd Life (SL) is a social network that can provide students with online collaborative spaces for extra language practice outside the brick and mortar classroom. With the assistance of Deke Kassabian of ISC and designer Claudia Rossini, the Penn Language Center is building a virtual reality based on Williams Hall on Penn’s campus. Although the exterior of the building resembles the actual site, the interior of Williams Hall is quite another story. Upon first entering the building one sees traditional looking classrooms but that impression soon changes as blackboards transition with one mouse click from blank surfaces to displays for streaming video, images or Powerpoint presentations. Upon going up the stairs to the second floor of Williams, the eye immediately gravitates to an area in a far corner of the room that is attractively furnished and conducive to conversation. Avatars, the residents of 2nd Life, can sit on comfortable chairs and couches around a table in a setting filled with objects and perceptual stimuli, that lend themselves to conversation and promote language practice. The illustration below is an example of such a space in Williams.
Returning to the ground floor, students can use the building directory to teleport themselves to areas beyond the traditional looking spaces in Williams to more whimsical and fanciful spaces based on specific culturally identifiable settings. Alongside the typical classroom one finds dedicated language areas such as the Persian courtyard and Japanese tea room where students can meet, talk and acquaint themselves with cultural settings that they might later encounter in the real world. There is also the Wirtshaus “Max und Moritz” where students can sit around a German “Stammtisch,” chat, read a menu and order a meal. Within these hybrid fantasy settings, instructors can design assignments that extend conversational practice beyond the face-to-face meetings of the classroom. In this way, SL can be used to align homework assignments more closely with classroom activities where the goal is to develop the students’ conversational competence.
This pilot project will help to determine in part to what extent virtual realities and personal learning environments can be used to not only enhance the students’ language learning experience but also to change the nature of homework from that of an exclusively individual exercise to that of a more collaborative activity. In contrast to workbook exercises that provide students with individualized practice for studying vocabulary and grammar and improving listening comprehension, SL can provide students with opportunities to work with each other in communicative activities that promote language usage through written and verbal practice. The big difference here is that situations in SL have the potential to encourage language practice through usage, i.e., through communication and interaction rather than only through memorization and study. See below for other examples of 2nd Life in Williams.
Japanese Tea Room
Persian Court Yard
German Wirtshaus
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Wow, Ed, the space photos are excellent! This build has happened so quickly. Congrats! to you and Claudia