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.