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