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.