Task Design for Language Learning in an Embodied Environment - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 260

INTRODUCTION:
CONTexTUALISATION,
OBjeCTIVeS AND OVeRVIeW

a community of educators worked on a variety
of projects exploring the potential of teaching
English and Spanish formally and informally in
a MUVE. The teaching and learning experiences
which form the basis of this chapter can thus be
considered a reflection on praxis, referring to a
series of ongoing case studies within the Lan-
guagelab.com environment.
The objectives set in this chapter are two-fold:

Achieving a degree of proficiency in at least one
of English, Mandarin or Spanish as a second lan-
guage is a prerequisite for most educational policy
systems in the 21st century. Indeed, competence
in English is considered by many governments
around the world to rank alongside ICT proficiency
as a universal life skill at the heart of primary and
secondary education (Graddol, 2006). It is equally
widely accepted that the most advantageous way of
learning a language is immersion-to do so living
and practicing with native speakers in the target
language community. Clearly, this option is only
open to a minority of people who find themselves
at a suitable life stage and with the means to do
so. Virtual worlds however, especially if voice
enabled, are particularly suited to language learn-
ing and offer the potential for second language
study without the need for world travel.
MUVEs provide a radically new context for
the language classroom, creating opportunities
to adapt and customize the educational environ-
ment as never before-and creating a number of
methodological questions as well. The pedagogy
of second language acquisition in formal education
depends heavily on the role of the participants,
the flexibility of the environment and the overall
resources available. Task-based learning, in com-
bination with competency guidelines, has proven
to be an effective approach for teaching in virtual
worlds, particularly in Second Life (www.secon-
dlife.com). Practice, though, indicates a need for
re-evaluation of existing assumptions of classroom
management, skills development, participation
and the use of materials, to name a few.
In this chapter, we will discuss these con-
cerns as impacted by embodiment on task design
and contrast this to real life learning situations.
Languagelab.com, a private company operating
within Second Life, built a virtual city to support
language learning in 2005 and, over several years,

• To provide an overview of the various the-

oretical frameworks underpinning success-
ful teaching and learning of languages in a
MUVE highlighting avenues for possible
follow up by researchers

• To provide the basis of good practice in the

field of language learning for practitioners
to implement and build on.

BACkgROUND: BRIeF
OVeRVIeW OF SeCOND
LANgUAge ACQUISITION AND
ITS ReLATION TO PeDAgOgY

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) refers to
the study of how second and foreign languages
are acquired. SLA is closely related to language
pedagogy and its findings are relevant to the field
of foreign language teaching. In order to better
understand the relevance of SLA to the field of
foreign language education, an overview of the
main concerns of SLA is provided.

What Constitutes knowledge
of Language?

The aim of language study is to achieve com-
municative competence (Canale & Swaine,
1980), which refers to the ability to use language
appropriately for the communication context. Ac-
cording to Canale & Swaine (1980), in order for
a speaker to be communicatively competent they
have to master four components: grammatical,