achieving the ying-yang in language learning and teaching in virtual worlds
DESCRIPTION
A presentation by Cristina Palomeque & Joan-Tomàs Pujolà from the Universitat de Barcelona featuring teaching and learning at Languagelab.com at the 43rd international teaching English conference IATEFL, Cardiff, UK 31 Mar - 4 April 2009TRANSCRIPT
ACHIEVING THE YING-YANG IN
LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING
IN VIRTUAL WORLDS
Cristina Palomeque
Joan-Tomàs Pujolà
43rd ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL IATEFL CONFERENCE
CARDIFF 31ST MARCH - 4TH APRIL 2009
contentsContext & Beliefs
Students’ & Teachers’ backpacks
Digital Student & digital teacher
MUVEs as VLEs
Language teaching in SL
Simulations
context
not a videogame
serious game
SL - as a VLES
ocial dimension
Interaction: environment, objects, avatars
Sen
se o
f pre
senc
e
Multimodal communication
“psychologically held understandings, premises, or prepositions about the world that are felt to be true”
Richardson 1996
beliefs
sts’ backpack: beliefs
Beliefs may have a profound influence on learning behavior. (Cotterall, 1995)
LearnersLearners’ belief ’ belief systemssystems covercover a a widewide rangerange of issues and can influence of issues and can influence learnerslearners’ motivation to learn, their ’ motivation to learn, their expectations about language learning, expectations about language learning, their perceptions about what is easy or their perceptions about what is easy or difficult about language, as well as the difficult about language, as well as the kind of learning strategies they favor.kind of learning strategies they favor.
(Richards & Lockhart, 1996:52)
Sts’ comments
+ Traditional
- The environment is fantastic- A stimulating and enjoyable way to learn a language- Props and scenes helped me remember the vocabulary
- I would like a class that prepared for tests like the TOEFL test
- I don’t think it is useful to speak with other students if the teacher is not listening / work in groups
- the classes I like best are grammar related
+ experimental with VLE
sts’ comments
T’s backpack: beliefs
Teachers’ deep-rooted beliefs about how language are learned will prevade their classroom actions more than a particular methodology they are told to adopt or coursebook they follow.
(Williams & Burden, 1997)
T’s comments
What I find most challenging about SL is that I don’t know how sts feel about the tasks. I cannot ‘read’ their faces.
We had a lot of fun in class because sts were very engaged in the task and afterwards we had a very interesting discussion about their learning preferences.
Today I could have used the SL environment more. I would not have liked to use it as if it were Skype because SL offers much more.
Digital Teacher
Digital Student
Traditional
- expects teachers to pour knowledge- is dependent on the teacher- feels safer with grammar lessons- prefers routines to unexpected situations
- builds knowledge through interaction with teacher & peers- knows how to work autonomously- enjoys engaging in meaningful lang. tasks - is open to the unexpected- enjoys learning by “playing”
Innovative
Digital Student
Innovative
Traditional- transferring methodology from the real life class, either grammar-based or CLT-based
- not exploiting the MUVE potential enough- having a “digital accent”
- experimenting new MUVE methodology- exploiting the MUVE to find its learning potential and effectiveness
- thinking as a “digital native”
Digital Teacher
Type of Ts & Sts in SL
language teaching in SL Course: - integrative skills- experiential learning - situational- virtual immersion
language teaching in SL
Independent modules:-separate skills
(conversation practise)
- separate language systems(grammar lessons)
simulations
Objectives - not explicit enough?Learner/teacher training forlanguage learning in a MUVE
situational
PBL / CLIL / learning by doing
cognitive challenge
not a role-play
different type of assessment
Simulations in the FL class
Traditional simulation structure
Adapting traditional simulations to language learning in MUVEs
brie
fing
sim
ulat
ion
debr
iefin
g
informative feedbackexplicit language objectives
enabling tasks
To achieve the ying-yang
make objectives explicit
train learner & teacher consider
learners’ beliefs
revisit your own beliefs
take advantage of the MUVE
engage learners actively
provide informative feedback exploit the “gaming”
dimension
