The class I have conducted last week

Last week I have conducted a class in SL. I played the role as a teacher to teach my two students English. Although the net speed was not very well, it did not effect a lot, we could still talk with the voice function. It was a quite good experience for both of us. They told me they had never experienced virtual lessons before and it seemed that learning in the virtual environment was interest of them. 
 
Yanlin

Cypris Chat: Halloween

Kimiko

English Cafe： Halloween

Kimiko

Qian's Week 12

Hello Everyone,

 

 

I have attended an art gallery in SL which was held by an American artist. It is so interesting to see so many amazing works showing in SL. You click on them, you can look at in different angels. Most importantly, you dont need to wait a long line to buy tickets. After that exhibition, I have chatted with that artist. Surprisely, he said that his orignial thoughts of his series works called 'Chen Yu Luo Yan' came from an classical Chinese romantic story. After heard that, I suddently remembered that my Chinese characters (CC) notecards for group trial lesson were sitting in my inventory. The idea is if he can get some inspriations from Chinese literature, he might also them from Chinese language. Then I dragged those notecards to him. He is quite interested in my way of showing Chinese characters, especially the evolutionary developments of Chinese characters. I promised him that I am going to made more notecards like that for him, also for my teaching.

 

With sending him the notecards, I was also sending him a pronouciation link to him. He can click that link to hear the correct pronouciation of that CC. He expressed that he really loved this way to learn CC. I also think I really like his way to show people his works.

 

This experience reminds me some improvements for my project, such as some the pronouciation links should be added on the notecards. The students can learn it without speaker or teachers' voice assistant. 2nd, a pre-test and a post-test will be better for learners to enhance their learning memories, also good for teachers to collect the teaching results. 3rd, more visual assistants will be great loved by CC learners, such as images plus illustrations, or images plus handing drawing evolutionary texts.

 

Sorry for the delaying post, I was sick last weekend.

 

Good luck

 

Qian

Some interesting landmarks

I have found some interesting landmarks where people teach and learn English. They are all built in Second Life. Interestingly, they are recommanded in an Asia International TEFL Conference. TEFL refers to Teaching English as a Foreign Langage. This conference focused on Collaboraton and Creativity in English Teaching and Learning in Asia. "The use of IT in Lnaguage Teaching" was a part of the contents in the conference, and it talked about teaching and learing in SL. I put these on the bolg in case you are interested in them.
 
Avatar Languages
British Council Isle
Cypris Village-English Learning Community
Education UK Island
Edunation
English Conversation
English Language School
English Village
ESL-Learn English-Language Lab
International Schools Islands
Second Life English
TESOL, TOEFL, ESL & EFL (English) Resources! Learn English!
Voice 3D English
 
 
 
Reference:
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/Cebu-Video.php
 
 
Yanlin

Report my attendance of English teaching classes 5

Although I continue to attend the other classes, I observed the pronunciation class at 3D English CHACHAT, and I could talk with the guide and students after the class.

The guide seems to grasp the detailed situation about English teaching schools or chat-groups in SL, and says that the area of English teaching in SL is not so wide. For example, the assistant of ‘Cypris Chat’ owner was his co-worker, but she was headhunted by ‘Cypris Chat’ about 2 years and a half ago.

The guide says that there is little possibility to attend the other English teaching classes for me, even if it is not free. That is because most of those kinds of schools were already closed, although they were well attended at first.

So, I will give up finding out the other classrooms, and focus on the classrooms which I could found out until now.

Kimiko

Ethical Considerations

This week, I will be focusing on the ethical conundrums that we have been facing in the past few weeks. Initially I 

was just focusing on our problems but I came across some interesting news that I thought I must share with you. 

Butterbusch and Talab (2009) explain various unethical scenarios in a very reader-friendly manner. They talk

about how a female avatar, who is new to SL is taken advantage of by a creature. The creature brings her to 

different lands, including the "seedy" side of SL. This was taken even further when the creature persuades the

female avatar to get a furry avatar of her own. What is interesting is that these furry creatures have their own 

social rules, values and practices. They have immersed themselves so completely into this identity that they have

forgotten what its like to have a simple human avatar and that it comes with its own identity. What proceeded

was that the female avatar was harassed and it was only when the female avatar changed back into her human 

form that the abuse stopped. Now, all of the above seems obviously unethical. However, apparently, even

choosing not to disclose your real life identity is unethical in Virtual Worlds. Dr. Alex Gordon, who conducted 

research on identity in Second Life revealed that 80% of female avatars were actually male and 75% of male 

avatars were actually female!! It is shocking to find how many people actually want to escape the realities of life 

by going to the extent of changing their identity. What makes the unethical aspect of this even worse is that there 

are scripts that allows the abuser to control his/her victim's avatar. Eg. Knees detached from the body, shoes on 

top of the head, etc. The icing on top of the cake is when SL users get punished in real life for crimes committed 

in SL. True stories include, a woman in Tokyo who kills her husband's avatar and is consequently sent to

prison and a woman in Delaware plotting to abduct her SL boyfriend. 

Coming to ethical issues that concern us more. Many researchers feel that it is alright to simply stand in the 

background and collect the data trail that people leave behind. However, as long as they are 'lurking', it is 

unacceptable.

Devi

References: 

Butterbusch, H. R., & Talab, R. S. (2009). Copyright and You Ethical Issues in Second Life [Journal]. TechTrends, 53(1), 6.

 Nairn, A. (2009). Research ethics in the virtual world [Journal]. International Journal of Market Research, 51(2).

About my final project

I have been invited to attend a class conducted by ESL (English as a second language) that I mentioned couple weeks ago this coming Saturday. The class will be focuing on pronunciation, vocabulary, scripted conversation. I will share my experience with all of you after I try the class.

The reason why I want to attend the class is realted to my final project. I will be role-playing as a teacher to conduct a lesson and teach English to some students drawing on my experience of learing in ESL. There might be two or three students who are showing their interest in learning English in SL.

Then, I will carry on exploring the idea of oral communication as well as the feasibility of teaching English in SL in China. In my final project, first, I will give a brief description of the role-playing group attending the class (number of people, content of class, etc). Second section includes the theory of teaching English in SL. Language teachers use SL to provide simulation of real life contexts and encourage students to improve their language skills in a more creative and realistic way (Chang, Gutl, Kopeinik and Williams, 2009).Third, I will talk about the positive and negative aspects of the feasibility of teaching English in SL in China basing on the experiences of me and my "students". Final part will be the conclusion part.

 

It is just a brief idea of my fianl project. There might be a possibility of changing a little bit in it.

 

Reference:

Chang. V., Gual, C., Kopeinik. S, & Williams, R. (2009). Evaluation of Collaborative Learning Settings in 3D Virtual Worlds. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (IJET).4 (7).

About my project

What you are doing/intending to do for the project assessment.
Analysis of English language teaching classes in Second Life

1) to briefly identify the aspect of second life that you are engaging in for your project work (e.g. what you are doing)
I am attending some English language teaching classes in Second Life.
At the same time, I will try three methodologies, which I identified for my project, in my teaching session in my group of this paper (Albert, Betty, Devi and me), which was proposed by Albert, on this coming Tuesday.
I would like to get some insights from this trial.

2) provide a very brief overview (referenced) of some of the concepts discussed in this area (this might just involve a cut and paste from your slide show).
I am planning to focus on the analysis of the following three teaching
methodologies:
1. Original Communicative Approach
(do not explain about grammar)
2. Task-Based Language Teaching Type 1
(explain about grammar before practice)
3. Task-Based Language Teaching Type 2
(explain about grammar after practice)

Kimiko

Applied Dual Coding Theory on Chinese characters teaching in Second Life

Dual Coding Theory (DCT) emphasises the theoretical perspective on learning and teaching sight vocabulary. It relates two specific areas on language cognition; they are verbal encoding and non-verbal encoding, such as imagery (Sadoski, 2005). Compared to English language, Chinese vocabulary was constructed with morphological aspects and represented more meaningful (Norman, 1988). The learning process require the students, especial the foreign language learners, have a good understanding on the meaning of certain Chinese characters. Based on this requirement, the teaching aids on Chinese characters should pay more attention on helping the students to know the words by verbal assistant, and to understand the meaning by using imagery (Shen, 2010).

Second Life provides an ideal platform for both Chinese learners and teachers. It offers an environment where you can re-build some ancient Chinese buildings and living conditions. Students’ imagery ability will be inspired specifically by it. It also gives the users to communicate with each other by speakers.

By listing those benefits, the trial project in SL will be constructed by two parts. In the first part, the teacher will introduce several concrete new vocabularies verbally. The assistant teaching tool in SL will be sending note cards. In the next part, the teacher will ask the students to find those corresponding things in words which have introduced by the teacher at the 1st part. For instance, the Chinese character ‘门’ means ‘door or gate’ in English. The teacher will teach this word ‘门’ first, and then she will ask the students to find a Chinese door in SL. The purpose is to show the students that the Chinese character ‘门’ came from real door in ancient China. With this learning, the students will get an imagery understanding on the word ‘门’. The whole project is based on DCT, and combined by verbal teaching and non-verbal (imagery) learning.



References
Norman, J. (1988). Chinese. Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Sadoski, M. (2005). A dual coding view of vocabulary learning. Journal of Reading & Writing Quarterly, 21, 221-238. doi: 10.1080/10573560590949359.
Shen, H. H. (2010). Imagery and verbal coding approaches in Chinese vocabulary instruction. Journal of Language Teaching Research, 14(4), 485-499. doi: 10.1177/1362168810375370.

About Theories of Effective Tasks

As I mentioned in my power-point, according to Hampel (2006), there are two theories for effective tasks. One is the second language acquisition theory by Ellis and the features of effective tasks in this theory are as follows (Ellis, 2000, p.200):

• Two-way information gap
• Closed outcome
• Non-familiar task
• Human/ethical topic (vs. objective/spatial topic)
• Narrative discourse (vs. description/expository)
• Context-free
• Involving detailed information

The other theory is the sociocultural theory by Meskill and the features of effective tasks in this theory are as follows (Meskill, 1999, p.146):

• Provide ample opportunities for differing perspectives and opinions, for controversy, disagreement, resolution, and consensus building.
• Motivate active participation and interaction by having no one single answer or process to employ in accomplishing them.
• Offer some form problem-solving (something for which computers are particularly well suited).
• Designate roles for individual learners and teams to take on as they engage in these processes, helping situate learners within a community of participants.
• Include a motivated awareness of the forms and functions of language used.

I thought that the comparison of these theories and the features of actual observed classroom activities seemed to help with understanding the language teaching methodologies in Second Life. However, these are too complex, so I thought that I would like to adopt a similar approach to Shinagawa’s (2001), which exams the relationship between task types and the effects on language acquisition using following classification criterion of task types (Shinagawa, 2001, p.104):

1. Form of activities:
Production (participants produce new information based on given information)
or reception (participants receive given information and understand it)
2. Way of negotiation:
Two-way exchange or one-way exchange
3. Way of implication of information:
Sharing information or monopolizing information

However, it seems that tasks are hardly used in English language classes in Second Life. Therefore I would like to analyze them from only the theoretical aspect of methodologies.


References

Ellis, R. (2000). Task-based research and language pedagogy. Language Teaching Research, 4(3), 193-220.

Hampel, R. (2006). Rethinking task design for the digital age: A framework for
language teaching and learning in a synchronous online environment. ReCALL,
18(1), 105-121.

Meskill, C. (1999). Computers as tools for sociocollaborative language learning. In K. Cameron (Eds.), CALL: Media, design and applications (pp. 141-162). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

Shinagawa, N. (2001). 日本語教育におけるゲームに対する教師の意識と使用実態. 日本語教育, 110, 101-109.　

Devi's Project

Devi

This is what I'm planning to do for my final project. I will be role-playing as a student and attending a Chinese lesson conducted by Betty. I will then observe my thoughts based on my identity. I will then analyse my experience with the theories that I touched on in the first assignment. Once I have established this, I will then record a video discussing my thoughts and views which will then, hopefully, be uploaded to YouTube.

Hope this is alright.

Report my attendance of English teaching classes 4

I attended a beginner English language teaching class on Saturday from 4:00 to 5:30 SL time at Cypris Chat. The teacher could come to the class at this time.

This class basically only uses a voice function, but if there are some troubles, such as participants cannot catch a speaker’s pronunciation, the speaker is allowed using a key board function.

There were many new participants in this time, so we introduced selves, and talked about similar events to Halloween in our countries which was an proposed topic by the teacher.

The teacher imposes us that the topic for a next session is folk stories of participants’ countries, so we have to prepare to talk about at least an outline of one folk story of our countries until next session.

As I could solved my problem about my flat's server, I also re-scheduled my observation of the pronunciation class at 3D Englsih CHACHAT.

Kimiko

How successful is Second Life for the development of communicative competence in a second language?

I will be participating in a teaching session in SL and reflecting on how successful SL is for the development of communicative competence in a second language. The outline of my teaching session is as follow:

Topic: Meeting & Greeting

Pre-Reading Activity: Group Discussion
How business people greet each other in different countries? (Speaking)

Reading Activity: Matching Information
Reading comprehension (Reading)

Post-Reading Activity: Group Discussion
Describe your own experiences (Speaking)

Outcome:
Students are made aware of the culturally appropriate ways in greeting people from different cultures through the means of practicing their speaking and reading skills in the target language, English.

My lesson is construed based on the framework of the 'Language Socialization Theory' - second language learners are socialized both to the language forms and through language, to the values, behaviours and practices of the culture of the target language. In other words, it involves “socialization through the use of language and socialization to use language” (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986, as cited in Ellis, 2008).

Moreover, I will also try to identify some of the theoretical issues discussed in previous works of literature about teaching in SL, for example, the technology readiness of both the teacher and the students (Wang et al., 2009); the design of meaningful and authentic tasks (Rifin, 2005, as cited in Blasing, 2010, p. 101); the settings of the physical and virtual learning environments (Wang eta al., 2009).

References

Blasing, M. T. (2010). Second language in Second Life: Exploring interaction, identity and pedagogical practice in a virtual world. Salvic and East European Journal 54(1), 96-117. Retrieved from AUT University Library database.

Ellis, R. (2008). The study of second language acquisition (2nd ed). Oxford, UK: Oxfrod University Press.

Schiller, S. Z. (2009). Practicing learner-centered teaching: Pedagogical design and assessment of a Second Life project. Journal of Information System Education 20(3), 369-381. Retreived from AUT University Library database.

Wang, C. X., Song, H., Xia, F., & Yan, Q. (2009). Integrating Second Life into an EFL program: Students’ perspectives. Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange 2(1), 1-16. doi: 10.1007/s11528-009-0337-z


Albert

Report my attendance of English teaching classes 3

I attended a regular English language learning class on Thursday at ALC’s English café, which was a free English language school in Second Life, from 2:00am to 3:00am New Zealand time on Wednesday and Thursday (they said that the timetable would be changed from next week).

There were an Australian teacher, one assistant teacher, and five learners at that time. They only chatted with a keyboard function, and did not use a voice function. When I asked, they said that it was the usual style of this school.


Kimiko

About Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT)

My purpose in this project is a comparison of Communicative Approach (CA) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), so I would like to describe about theories of TBLT, too.

Willis’ (1996, p.38) components of TBLT framework is as follows:
1. Pre-task
Introduction to topic and task
Teacher explores the topic with the class, highlights useful words and phrases, helps students understand task instructions and prepare. Students may hear a recording of others doing a similar task.
2. Task cycle
2-1. Task
Students do the task, in pairs or small groups. Teacher monitors from a distance.
2-2. Planning
Students prepare to report to the whole class (orally or in writing) how they did the task, what they decided or discovered.
2-3. Report
Some groups present their reports to the class, or exchange written reports, and compare results.
Students may now hear a recording of others doing a similar task and compare how they all did it.
3. Language focus
3-1. Analysis
Students examine and discuss specific features of the text or transcript of the record.
3-2. Practice
Teacher conducts practice of new words, phrases and patterns occurring in the data, either during or after the analysis.

In Willis’ framework, learners accomplish a task without sticking to particular grammatical structures. Then after accomplishing the task, grammatical structures, which are thought to need reinforcement, are focused. Although this way can naturally integrate the part of focus on meaning through communication activity and explicit explanation of grammatical structures, there is no opportunity to use focused grammatical structures. Although Kudara (2010), who is one of promoters of Willis’ framework, also points out a necessity of the opportunity to use focused grammatical structures, there is an opposing theory to Willis that the explicit explanation has to precede activities such as Yates (2004).
Therefore frameworks under the name of TBLT can be typified by the following two types:

TBLT Theory Type 1
1. Pre-task
2. Task cycle
3. Language focus
TBLT Theory Type 2
1. Pre-task
2. Language focus
3. Task cycle


References

Kudara, M. (2010). タスク重視の教材開発―試案―. BATJ Journal, 11, 8-16.

Willis, J. (1996). A framework for task-based learning. England: LONGMAN.

Yates, L. (2004). The ‘secret rules of language’: teaching pragmatics in the classroom. Prospect 19(1), 3-21.

About Cummunicative Approach (CA)

Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) has been developed as one of the post Communicative Approaches (CAs). However, it can be hardly said that they are clearly defined, although the promoters emphasize the differences between TBLT and CA (Knight, 2000).

Firstly, therefore, I would like to describe about theory of CA.

CA is the language teaching methodology which originated from a criticism with audio-lingualism. It was developed based on outcomes and theoretical frameworks of discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, etc. These theoretical frameworks were generated spontaneously, and were developed through influence of a democratic education started from 1930s, social philosophy after the Second World War, and linguistic philosophy, anthropology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, etc., progressed in 1960s in the West (Aoki, 1991).

CA has been criticized because it dismisses grammatical structures based on an idea of the serious consideration of meaning for communication; and then, various language teaching methodologies has advocated and practiced as the post CAs. However, the theory of CA still occupies the center of foreign and second language teaching (Hashimoto et al. 1999).

Nowadays the tendency of dismissing grammatical structures is dwarfed. Then CA is interpreted various language teaching theories and methodologies to improve learners’ communication competence and strategies through teaching and activities which is contextualized by authentic materials. There is no stated methodology for CA, and it consists of various theories for the definition and actual practice based on the policies from meaning-centered to grammar-centered (Hashimoto et al. 1999).

References

Aoki, N. (1991). コミュニカティブ・アプローチの教育観. 日本語教育, 73, 12-21.

Hashimoto, Y., Hirata, M., & Tasaki, K. (1999). 「コミュニカティブ」な教室活動に対する学生の受けとめ方―COLTによる中国系・非中国系学生の比較―. 日本語教育, 103, 89-98.

Knight, P. (2000). The development of EFL methodology. In C. N. Candlin & N. Mercer
(Eds.), English language teaching in its social context: A reader (pp. 147-166). London:
Routledge.

Kimiko

Report my attendance of English teaching classes 2

I attended a beginner English language teaching class on Saturday at Cypris Chat. However, the teacher could not come to the class, because his/her voice function had a trouble. Therefore participants chatted about one hour with an owner’s assistant of Cypris Chat.

A server of my flat did not work from Sunday, so I could not attend the pronunciation class on Monday at Chachat. When the server is recovered, I'll ask my contact person the new schedule.

Kimiko

Bottleneck time in my Second Life

Hi All,

How is your last week? It seemed I was losing my enthusiam about Second Life. I tried to build some thing in it, but I did not complete. Some frustrated feelings 'fly' around me.

Last time, I was walking round in SL. I ended up my journey in a analog streetwar island. Many soldier played avatars are operating an analog streetwar in that island. One of them was a lady, she said she belonged to an army. There are two groups soildors on this island. That green group (which she belongs to) plays the 'attacking' one. That red group plays the 'enemy'. Once the war was on, they would analog the streetwar in real life, say attack each other. I almost screwed her 'life' by keeping asking her questions. One of her enemies found us and attacked us, I had to be logged off SL suddenly. I did not her final result. When I was back and tried to add her as my friend, I could not find them at all. Maybe they changed their battle to another island.

This unexpected experience made me think that SL might be an ideal tool for combaining online game and teaching or learning language together. Teacher can devide the students into two learning groups in SL. The teacher might also design some competitive games according to the learning needs.

Cheerio

Qian

Report my attendance of English teaching classes

Although I am not sure what degree I can report about my experience, I attended a briefing session and one beginner English language teaching class at Chachat.

I will attend the pronunciation class this coming Monday at Chachat too.

Kimiko

The journey continues....

Devi

So..my journey continues...

I first went to this Philosophy Island...wasn't expecting much..but I did join in the group discussion which was about laws..They were talking about how certain laws appear crazy..like banning alcohol in certain areas of certain countries.... (no countries were mentioned) It didn't make sense to some of them cos it just goes against common sense... n then that led on to how society has regressed (which was where the 

philosophy part emerged)...it was quite interesting...

The Second Place I went to was an English Pub...Can anyone see the Queen's picture? This was epic...why? Three different people...all from 3 different areas of the UK and all 3 had different accents.They were on voice-chat. One of them didn't even recognize the accent...Initially I just stood there listening when suddenly a female asks me which part of UK i come from...she just assumed!! And unknown to me I replied that I hailed from Leicestershire (my aunt lives there) and all this was done with an english accent that I didn't know I possessed... Thought a lot about why I did that...

The Third Place I went to was another english-associated place. I was looking for english language schools but I ended up in all these other places instead... Nothing caught my eye...except a dead body...can you see? apparently avs CAN die...but this guy kept getting up n then lying dead again...so I'm not sure. It was pretty funny cos the rest of them were trying to guess how he could have died... oh well...the mystery never got solved...The adventures will continue next week!! Stay tuned...

The End...

Qian’s reflections on self-identity between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’

Hi Everyone,

Nesson R. and Nesson C. (2008) have explored a case educational study in Second Life. Beside this teaching behaviour, they also summarized several issues between the real life living and virtual world interactions, such as the clothes shops in Second Life are different from those in real life. It reminds me my personal experience between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’. Those experiences make me to be ‘me’ both in real life and in Second Life.

For those experiences, I have to mention a person who is known by most of us, she is Sarraline. We have known each other in Second Life at the beginning. We have travelled many places and chatted a lot in this virtual world. From what we were talking and interactions, I realized that she and I might be the same type of persons in real life. I speak in a way which I used to speak in real life. I tried to dress myself to give her some ‘clues’ to tell her who I am in real life. I believe that, if I am a nice person in real life, my avatar should be a nice avatar in virtual life. After a long time interactions, we have became friends in SL firstly. Every time, when I see her name is shining with ‘Sarraline is online’, I just feel warm around. I control my avatar to shake hands or make ‘kiss’ gesture to her.

One day, when we were talking about marriage in SL. We suddenly realized that both of us are married in real life. We decided to have coffee in real life immediately. In the next day, we met at a coffee house and had a long time chat with each other. After that, we call each other ‘dear’ or ‘sister’ in SL and in real life. I feel that wherever I am, when I saw Sarraline, she is indeed my ‘dear’ or ‘sister’. My feelings towards real life and SL have been enhanced positively.

If these bidirectional interactions can be applied on Chinese teaching, both the students and teachers will build a positive relationship which might enhance their learning motivations in both real life and SL. For instance, if a student is praised by the teacher in SL like: ‘you are such a good student’, the student can feel the same joy in real life. After the virtual class, she/he might behave a good student in real life too, and furthermore, she/he might like this language more. Certainly, the questions might not be such easy as I thought. How to ‘produce’ these positive bidirectional interactions into language teaching behaviours will be a ‘big’ question for me. Currently, it is such a joy to meet someone good in virtual world and then become someone good in real life.

Reference

Nesson, R., & Nesson, C. (2008). The case for education in virtual worlds. Journal of space and culture, 11(3). 273-284. Sage Publications. doi: 10.1177/1206331208319149.

'Socialisation for learning at a distance in a 3-D multi-user virtual environment'

Hi All,


The findings of a pilot study that examined how a 3-D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), Second Life (SL) can facilitate social presence and foster socialisation among distance learners for collaborative learning activities are reported in this paper. SL, a 3-D MUVE has the potential to generate a sense of presence among peers via their avatars in a 3-D environment through real-time interactions that may facilitate relationship-building. This pilot study is aimed to investigate the role of a 3-D MUVE in distance education and in particular, how social presence and socialisation can be developed.

Data analysis
Analysis of interviews with participants, in-world learning sessions observations and analysis of chat logs provided insights into:

1. the nature of in-world socialisation and its impact on network building in the physical world;
Interviews with all four participants who were first-time users of any 3-D MUVE, showed that the learning activities in SL provided them with a platform for ‘meeting’ and in-world socialisation leading to network building. The observation of learning sessions and SL training sessions also showed that SL was a platform for socialisation.

2. the pattern of the in-world ‘socialisation’ stage in Salmon’s (2004) 5-stage model;
According to Salmon, typical online activities in an asynchronous discussion forum usually run over a minimum of 5-6 weeks in order to give participants time to get used to the technology and to overcome the initial barriers of online socialisation, which takes place during the first two weeks. Analysis of chat logs and students’ behaviour in SL in the pilot study indicated that they moved well into the socialisation stage during the first learning activity soon after the technical training.

3. perspectives on students’ progress through the first stage of the model – ‘access and motivation’; and
Experience of participants, revealed in interviews, was evident that Stage 1 of the Salmon model – ‘access and motivation’ occurred when they had to learn to use a set of communication tools and protocols and to acquire navigational skills which were different from those required in text-based online environment.

4. perspectives on their entry into and progress through the second stage of the model – ‘socialisation’ and the role of identity presented through avatars in the process of socialisation.
The interview data on socialisation in SL appeared to be complex. On the one hand, participants’ feeling was of a totally immersive experience as if they were in a real physical world. On the other hand, they were aware that their interactions with other students were mediated through an avatar and they felt that the conversations mediated through avatars were very polite.

Conclusion
The socialisation stage occurred smoothly in the virtual environment provided by SL. Participants who had previously done most of their learning on paper considered the learning activities, the artefacts and the 3-D immersive environment in SL provided an exploratory learning experience for them. This pilot study also demonstrated that the pedagogy in SL – the designing for learning activities in SL lies in the hands of the teachers and students. Observations of learning sessions and interviews revealed that the learning scenarios worked well because the tutors had purposely designed them for learning and had carefully crafted the learning activities.

Reference

Edirisingha, P., Nie, M., Pluciennik, M., & Young, R. (2009). Socialisation for learning at a distance in a 3-D multi-user virtual environment. British Journal of Educational Technology 40(3), 458-479. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00962.x

Jet skiing in Cypris

Hi All,

Here's a short video clip of me jet skiing in Cypris, hope you like it :-)

Jet skiing in Cypris

Cheers

Albie

'Analog vs. digital instruction and learning: Teaching within first and Secind Life environments'

Hi All,


This study compares the learning experience of students in traditional visual communication course to those taking the same course via online instruction. Students’ knowledge of course content and attitudes concerned with the instruction were analysed with pre- and post- surveys. One group of students was taught completely in a traditional face-to-face classroom setting while the other group was taught completely online with Blackboard and Second Life softwares. The features of the Blackboard software include, grade checking, discussion board assignments, course material links, paper depository, classroom discussion recordings and examinations as well as the synchronus feature known as the “virtual classroom”. In the online classroom, students are shown with slides with words and pictures, websites and video clips as the text-based discussion continues. Second Life is an avatar-based virtual social community of residents where they can walk, fly, drive and teleport to various rural and urban simulated environments and to engage in different kinds of activities. A total number of 334 undergraduates took part in this study; 161 of the participants were taught in a traditional face-to-face visual communication lecture course and the other 173 took the same course via online instruction.

The survey results demonstrate that students’ experience in a visual communications course conducted online compared positively with traditional face-to-face instruction. Moreover, the results did not uncover any significant initial differences in perceived competencies between online and traditional students. The attitudes of the online students remained moderately constant from the start of the course to the end, whereas the attitudes of the face-to-face students dropped a little. It is an encouraging sign that the attitudes of the online students remained constant because it shows that students’ expectations can be met by courses delivered in an online format. Student evaluations collected at the end of the course suggested some polarization of opinion in both class formats regarding the way the material was presented. The abundant use of examples, video clips and the like was mentioned in the traditional course, while in the online course, the comments were predominantly focused on the Second Life format. This study also suggests that with the increasing number of students are requesting more flexible teaching schedules and more creative learning environments and administrators are becoming more concerned about space restrictions with over-crowded on-campus lecture rooms, teaching experiments with software products like Blackboard and Second Life are necessary in the development of the teaching profession.

Reference

Lester, P. M., & King, C. M. (2009). Analog vs. digital instruction and learning: Teaching within first and Secind Life environments. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14, 457-483. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01449.x

Debbie's presentation in SL

Hey Everyone,

 

I have attended a conference last night. The speaker of it was Debbie from our AUT University, language school. Her topic was intercultural competence. It was really interesting. Even though, because of my broken headspeaker, I can not hear her voice. It is still an excellent presentation with great slides.

 

Qian

My reading report: Improving the Student Experience � Student Support in Virtual

Thi study aims to explore the influnence of affordances of virtual worlds on the support of students as they begin their studies in initial teacher training. Thirty undergraduate students in a primary education course at a university were chosen to be the sample group. Vedioed interviews and qustionnaires were used to collect useful imformation in terms of preperation for the course.
 
The result reveales that students who are all intersested in the projiect presentation for teacher traning in virtual world. Also, less than half members of the group have never heard about SecondLife before they had this experience. All of the participants found value in the project and benefit of having meeting with other members in the SecondLife. Moreovere, over half of the students faced problems in accessing SecondLife on their home computers. This study investigates many positive attributes of SecondLife which provides students an virtual environment and facilitate student support activity. Students are able to access in virtual world to prepare course and have virtual meetings which are greatly different from those of face to face meetings in real life. Both students and tutors reported that they felt as though were attending a "real" meeting. online meetings and presentations in SecondLife offer students active atmosphere and sense of fun, which was proved to be efficient to imporve dynamics among students and take the fear factor away from starting university.
 
Reference:
Woods, J. (2010). Improving the Student Experience � Student Support in Virtual
        Environments. The Journal of Virtual W 90 orlds and Education, 1 (1).
 
P.S  Kimiko, thank you for your comments, but I am afraid I can't give you any details of what you want to know, because the author just mentioned this idea in the article and did not give further details of it, actually it was not the focus of the study. Thank you!
 
Yanlin

Comment on Qian’s posting ‘Trial lesson in Second Life: Chinese language’

I’m really interested your trial.
Although I think that we need to prepare several things, I would like to challenge it in our Japanese class too.

Kimiko

Trial lesson in Second Life: Chinese language

Hey All,

I had a trial Chinese lesson with my student this Monday and Tuesday. It combines by real life learning and SL learning. In my last blog, I mentioned my proposal idea on teaching Chinese in Second Life (SL). I have tried it this week. In this post, I am going to describe this process of our student to tutor trial Chinese language lesson in SL.

The learning outcomes of this lesson are: 1st, several new vocabularies of café in Chinese should be learnt by student; 2nd, the student can use these words in real life communication; 3rd, the student will make new sentences by himself with these new words; forth, the student can write those words in Chinese characters correctly. There are two sections in this lesson. The first section continues two hours in real life. The second section takes one hour in SL. The target learning vocabularies are ‘café’ related words in Chinese. I have taught these words in real life. Then we practice how to use them in daily life. This practice is carried on in SL.

After done with this lesson, I have summarized few points according to my personal reflections and my student’s feedback. 1st, it is a good way to learn new words in an unprepared condition in SL. For instance, we were supposed to practice ‘café’ related Chinese words in SL. However, when we finished this practice and were walking outside the café shop towards a waterfall pool. The student found the waterfall was very interesting and started to ask me what the word of waterfall is in Chinese. Then I replied him immediately. He quickly remembered that new word for waterfall in Chinese. 2nd, SL as a public virtual platform, people in here, it is easy to be disturbed by others around you when you were continuing a kind of private activity. Our lesson has been paused for 10 minutes by two unexpected visitors. It made us to leave that café shop and found another one to instead. 3rd, both of my student and me have encountered some technology issues in SL, such as freezing screens and non sound speakers. Fortunately, in the meanwhile, I texted him about these technology issues in Chinese. For instance, the student complaint that his screen is freezing, and I replied that freeze screen in Chinese is called ‘卡 (ka)’; say ‘我的电脑很卡 （my computer is very slow. It implies that my screen is freezing.）’.

I am so admired Kimiko’s reading reports. You do read a lot, Kimiko. I am still reading some of them which I found in Kimiko’s reading reports. Thank you for the shares, Kimiko.

Qian

Comment on Yanlin’s posting ‘Life Long Learning: Seniors in Second Life Continuum’

I cannot post my comment again. This is my comment on Yanlin's newest posting.

Hello Yanlin:

I am interested in your posting.

You write that “also, the researcher assumed that the virtual classroom might be effective in promoting learning activities and increasing interests in using virtual worlds for educational or academic purposes.”

If the researcher mentions more details about it, please provide the information.

Kimiko

Reading Report No.6

As we can know form his article title, Peterson’s (2010) study is the examination of learner participation patterns and strategy use in SL. However, I focus only one of his research questions that “what are the significant participation patterns during learner task-based interaction in Second Life?” (Peterson, 2010, p.275).

The method is a case study with discourse analysis of three tasks of participants who are seven intermediate level EFL students studying at university in Japan (Peterson, 2010).

Peterson (2010) concludes that there is highly learner-centered nature of the interaction between students in SL environment. This may facilitate the development of learner autonomy.

It seems that many studies show that most of the tasks in a SL environment are learner-centered.


References

Peterson, M. (2010). Learner participation patterns and strategy use in Second Life: An exploratory case study. ReCALL, 22(3), 273-292.

'Virtual world teaching, experiential learning, and assessment: An interdisciplinary communication course in Second Life'

Hi All,


This study looks at the nature and process of learning in Second Life in a graduate interdisciplinary communication course. This study is an empirical examination of the actual instruction effectiveness of Second Life as an experiential learning enviroment for interdisciplinary communication. The research methods used in this study is a mixture of journal content analysis (students’ world view journals), surveys, focus group and virtual world snapshots and video. The authors’ intention to perform this study is to answer the following four research questions: 1) How (when, how often and in what kinds of social situations) does learning occur in Second Life? 2) What types of learning do students experience often in Second Life? 3) Does learning in Second Life transfer to real life? 4) Do students perceive Second Life as instrumental in learning?

The results indicate that the learning environment in SL has fostered students’ development of interdisciplinary communication awareness and strategies effectively. (Answer to Question 1) Reports from the focus group show that learning was facilitated by various supportive characteristics of SL and students commonly mentioned that the 3-D virtual environment in SL encouraged real life applications of the theories and strategies studied in the course curriculum (a key indicator of successful experiential learning). (Answer to Question 2) Upon analysing the content of students’ journals and the focus group discussion, an increased general awareness of one’s own and others’ perspectives was the type of learning that occurred most often in SL and this type of learning happened in the context of interactions with other avatars in SL. (Answer to Question 3) Several focus group participants claimed that their SL learning experiences transferred into their real lives in the form of broadened and fresh perspectives. Their project engaged them experientially, led to various types of learning and transferred in different ways to real life. (Answer to Question 4) The data collected in the students’ survey showed that the maojority of them agreed that their engagement and learning would increase or increased because of SL therefore the idea to use SL in the course was validated and the students’ independent continuation of their project was a significant indication that they found SL to be instrumental in learning.

Reference

Jarmon, L., Traphagan, T., Mayrath, M., & Trivedi, A. (2009). Virtual world teaching, experiential learning, and assessment: An interdisciplinary communication course in Second Life. Computer & Education 53, 169-182. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.01.010

My report of an article

Sorry , I forgot to write my name. The one below is my post. Hope you guys have had a good break so far!
 
Yanlin
Cheers

Life Long Learning: Seniors in Second Life Continuum

This study is aimed to find out that practices for conducting and creating applications for senior people and also impoving the use of computer and Internet among senior population. It was indicated that designing virtual classrooms in Second Life was feasile and useful  for seniors education. The potential significant purpose of this project was to creat a efficient, dependable and reproducible model for outreach to senior activity centers and retirement communities.

 

Reserchers planed for targeted population to interact in a series of workshops to test wherher seniors wer benefited from this type of virtual education experience:

 

Virtual health fair: to provide seniors with information about searching for health and health-related topics on the Internet.

E-mail  classroom: to teach seniors to setup and use an E-mail account.

Art classroom: to expose seniors to different kinds of art

 

According to the article, most seniors participants showed enjoyment of the virtual education experience. SecondLife is accessible to a large population and it provides an interesting learning environment to seniors. With the rapid growth of old population, it is important for seniors to be aware of  computer use and the advantages of using computer. The experience of virtual classroom in SecondLife improved computer application

knowledge of seniors as well as the use of computer technology. Senior people could access information conveniently with the applications and tutorials in SecondLife. The advatages of the experience of virtual classroom might be shown in the aspects of time and location, because the traditional classroom teaching had a limitaion of them. The researchers identified areas of interest for seniors and intergrated them into learning environment in SecondLife. This kind of experience greatly promoted their interest of internet.Also, the researcher assumed that the virtual classroom might be effective in promoting learning activities and increasing interests in using virtul worlds for educational or academic purposes.

 

References:

Seals, C. D., & Moses, W., & Nyagwencha, J.,& Martin, A., & Clanton, K., & Thomos,  C.M., & Doswell, F. (2008). Life Long Learning: Seniors in Second Life  Continuum. Journal of Computer Science, 4 (12).

.

Reading Report No.5

Hampel (2006) argues that an environment of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) cannot be thought the same as a face-to-face classroom setting, and both the design of tasks and their implementation have to reflect the affordances of the environment. Then, Hampel (2006) considers that the appropriate task design and the implementation through examining level 2 and level 3 German courses at Open University.

Hampel (2006) concludes that the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and sociocultural theories developed for face-to-face teaching can be transferred to a CMC environment. However, new features have to also be considered when designing and implementing tasks for a CMC environment.

Features for effective tasks in SLA theory are as follows (Ellis, 2000):
・Information exchange
・Two-way information gap
・Closed outcome
・Non-familiar task
・Human/ethical topic (vs. objective/spatial topic)
・Narrative discourse (vs. description/expository)
・Context-free
　 ・Involving detailed information　　　　　

Features for effective tasks in sociocultural theory are as follows (Meskill, 1999):
・Provide ample opportunities for differing perspectives and opinions.
・Motivate active participation and interaction by having no one single answer or process.
・Provide some form of problem-solving.
・Designate roles for individual learners to help situate them in a community of target language.
・Offer some focuses on the forms and functions of language use.

Regarding new features of a CMC environment, I summarized features of SL in my posting “Report about my reading”.


References

Ellis, R. (2000). Task-based research and language pedagogy. Language Teaching Research, 4(3), 193-220.

Hampel, R. (2006). Rethinking task design for the digital age: A framework for language teaching and learning in a synchronous online environment. ReCALL, 18(1), 105-121.

Meskill, C. (1999). Computers as tools for sociocollaborative language learning. In K. Cameron (Eds.), CALL: Media, design and applications (pp. 141-162). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

Reading Report No. 4

Lester and King (2009, p462) compare undergraduates’ learning outcome and attitude toward learning experience in “a traditional face-to face visual communications lecture course” and the same course via Second Life. In their study, the same lecture taught the same contents in both courses.

Although Lester and King (2009) report that the results do not show significant differences in both learning outcome and attitude toward learning experience, this study is not about language teaching course. Similarly, all reading materials in their literature review are not about language teaching or Second Life as follows:


Online-assisted instruction is superior

Maki, Maki, Patterson & Whittaker (2000)
There is no reference about this reading material, but Lester and king (2009) mention that this material is about psychology.
Benbunan-Fich and Hiltz (1999)
The studay area is business, the tool is Asynchronous Learning Networks.
Twigg (2003)
I think that this article only says that web-based course-delivery improve quality and reduce cost of educational institutions. The tool is Web site.
Winsler and Manfra (2002)
I cannot get the full-text, but the abstract explains that this article is about pre-post child development course for undergraduates and WebCT.


Face-to-face instruction is superior

Wang and Newlin (2000)
The study area is Psychology, the tool is Web site.
Waschull (2001)
The study area is psychology, the tool is Web site.
Rodrigue (2002)
The area is geography, the tool is Web site.


There is no significant difference between online-assisted and face-to-face instructions

Botsch and Botsch ( 2001)
The study area is American government classes, the tool is Web site.
Sankaran, Sankaran and Bui (2000)
The study area is business computer course, the tool is Web site.
Hensley (2005)
The study area is core curriculum classes of Department of Theatre and Dance, the tool is WebCT.
Shelley, Swartz and Cole (2006)
I cannot get the full-text, but the abstract explains that this article is about business law and Internet.
Benoit, Benoit, Milyo and Hansen (2006)
I cannot find this book, But Lester and King (2009) mention that this book is about speech communication course and WebCT.

In summary, I cannot find studies about language teaching with Second Life which conclude that face-to-face instruction is superior or there is no significant difference between online-assisted and face-to-face instructions.


References

Benbunan-Fich, R., & Hiltz, S. R. (1999). Educational applications of CMCS: Solving case studies through asynchronous learning networks. Retrieved September 9, 2011, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1999.tb00098.x/full

Botsch, C. S., & Botsch, R.E. (2001). Audiences and outcomes in online and traditional American government classes: A comparative two-year study. PSOnline, 34, 135-141.

Hensley, G. (2005). Creating a hybrid college course: Instructional design notes and recommendations for beginners. Retrieved September 9, 2011, from http://jolt.merlot.org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/vol1_no2_hensley.htm

Rodrigue, C. M. (2002). Assessment of an experiment in teaching geography online. Retrieved September 9, 2011, from Assessment of an experiment in teaching geography online

Lester, P. M., & King, C. M. (2009). Analog vs. digital instruction and learning: Teaching within first and second life environments. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14, 457-483.

Sankaran, S.R., Sankaran, D., & Bui, T. X. (2000). Effect of student attitude to course format on learning performance: An empirical study in web vs. lecture instruction. Journal of Instructional Technology, 27(1), 66-73.

Shelley, D. J., Swarts, L. B., & Cole, M. T. (2006). A comparative analysis of online and traditional undergraduate business low courses. Retrieved September 9, 2011, from http://www.igi-global.com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/bookstore/article.aspx?titleid=2305

Twigg, C.A. (2003).Improving quality and reducing costs: Designs for effective learning. Change, 35(4), 22-29.

Wang, A. Y., & Newlin, M.H. (2000). Characteristics of students who enrol and succeed in psychology web-based classes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(1), 137-143.

Waschull, S.B. (2001). The online delivery of psychology courses: Attribution, performance, and evaluation. Teaching of Psychology, 28(2), 143-147.

Winsler. A., & Manfra, L. (2002). Increasing student learning, technology use, and computer skills via use of WEBCT in an undergraduate child development course: A pre-post course evaluation study. Retrieved September 9, 2011, from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED472513&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED472513#

comment on Albie's posting

I tried to post a comment on Albie's posting, but I could not do it again. This is just my comment on his posting ‘a virtual world environment for group work’.


I also read this article.

I mentioned in my second reading report in this blog that it seems that there is a tendency to recur Communicative language Teaching (CLT) in SL world. Since it seems that learner-centered teaching is emphasized, I think such tendency also can recognize in this article. The brief background is as follows.

In the CLT, it views that communicative competence acquisition as an implicit process which has no description about the grammatical rules (Van Den Branden, 2006) for engaging the interpretation, expression, and negotiation of meaning (Savignon, 2005). Therefore, this methodology is learner-centered, and the key roles for the teachers are: facilitator of the communication process, including the roles of organizer and guide, and participant with the learning (Breen & Candlin, 1980, as cited in Knight, 2000). However, there has been an acknowledgement that acquisition can be accelerated, if learners’ attention is drawn to specific linguistic features of the target language explicitly and directly (Long, 1991, as cited in Knight, 2000).

Therefore the post CLT methodologies attempt to not only focus on meaning, but also focus on form (Long & Norris, 2000, as cited in Knight, 2000), and then, these methodologies, such as Genre-Based Teaching (GBT) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), are more teacher-centered than CLT (Knight, 2000).


References

Knight, P. (2000). The development of EFL methodology. In C. N. Candlin & N. Mercer (Eds.), English language teaching in its social context: A reader (pp. 147-166). London: Routledge.

Savignon, S. J. (2005). Communicative language teaching: Strategies and goals. In E. Hinkel (Eds.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 635-650). Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Van Den Branden, K. (2006). Introduction: Task-based language teaching in a nutshell. In K. Van Den Branden (Eds.), Task-based language education: From theory to practice (pp. 1-16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Darkness Forest in SL

Hi All,

SL has been playing up on the laptop lately; every time I try to teleport somewhere, it crashes and shuts down completely!!! VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

However, I must have been in luck tonight to be able to teleport to this rather dreamy and mysterious place in SL, the Darkness Forest. The overall landscape and setting is very surreal and the music they play (mostly in Japanese) is rather nice too.

I'm putting up some snapshots here and also a link to a video recording I took in Darkness Forest, hope you like it & pay a visit there yourself.

And finally, fingers crossed that SL will start to work properly again on my laptop!

Cheers

Albie


An avatar with amazing wings



Link to my video

Darkness_Forest

Reading Report No. 3

According to Wehner, Gump and Downey (2011), motivation is one of the most influential forces on a person’s ability to learn a foreign language. They compare the motivation of students in the standard curriculum undergraduate Spanish language course and the course in which Second Life (SL) is used. They conclude that the use of Second Life may have a positive effect on students’ motivation.

Then, they analyze the reasons based on Klein’s (1986, as cited in Wehner, Gump & Downey, 2011) theory of second language acquisition which focuses on social integration, communicative needs, and attitude as the most important dimensions of motivation. For social integration, Second Life allows students to create a new identity with which they can use their target language outside their social constructs, and to be anonymous for unrestricted communication of visual cues, such as gender and race. For communicative needs, immersing students into SL environment creates a constant need for them to use of the target language which beyond their typical use in classroom. For attitude, SL provides students a world to feel more confident, and then, be more inclined to participate and practice (Wehner, Gump & Downey, 2011).

Reference

Wehner, A. K.,Gump, A. W., & Downey, S. (2011). The effects of Second Life on the motivation of undergraduate students learning a foreign language. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 24(3), 277-289.

report about my success 3

I can create a note card. It's a black rectanble in the front of my power-point.



Kimiko