Foreign Language Instruction in a Virtual Environment: - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 307

include art, business, health education, interior
design, writing, urban planning and design, theatre,
military science, and many more. Both instructors
and researchers have been exploring the potential
of this virtual world in order to better define how
these environments could facilitate and promote
learning (Coffman & Klinger, 2007; Kaplan-
Rakowski & Loh, 2010; Dickey, 2005; Salmon,
2009; Schwienhorst, 2002).
For foreign language instruction, virtual
environments display certain particularly useful
characteristics; these include unique communi-
cation tools and immersive settings facilitating
situated learning. In the past, foreign language
students were limited to a classroom space filled
with artificiality, where only pictures of Shanghai
were to remind them that they needed to speak
Chinese. Now, thanks to the existence of virtual
worlds, students can easily and instantaneously
teleport to a virtual China. Once there, thousands
of native speakers (or more precisely, their avatars)
are available for students to converse with and
practice their Chinese. This venue makes learning
potentially more meaningful and sets it in a relevant
context. Therefore, much of the artificiality of the
traditional classroom has been removed.
Due to the particular advantages of virtual
worlds for learning foreign languages, it comes
as no surprise that “language learning is the most
common education-based activity in Second
Life” - as Joe Miller, Linden Lab Vice President
of Platform and Technology Development claims
(http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/05/
out-of-stealth-8d-taps-language-learners-bots-
microtransactions.html).
Indeed, the affordances of Second Life for
foreign language instruction have been leading to
increased focus from educators (Molka-Danielsen
& Deutschmann, 2009; Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008;
Wang, Song, Xia, & Yan, 2009; Canfield, Kaplan-
Rakowski, Sadler, Volle & Thibeault, 2009;

Molka-Danielsen, Richardson, Deutchmann &
Carter, 2007). For example, CALICO (The Com-
puter-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium),
a leading foreign language education association
that focuses on teaching languages with technol-
ogy, devotes an increasing amount of conference
slots for presentations on virtual world language
learning. Another sign of growing attention is re-
vealed by the numerous projects conducted within
SL that involve language learning. Hundsberger
(2009) lists several of those projects. They include
the NIFLAR project (Networked Interaction in
Foreign Language Acquisition and Research), The
Kamimo project, the AVALON project (Access to
Virtual and Access Learning live ONline), and the
Talk with Me project. Those projects explore the
possibilities that foreign language students can
have for education in virtual settings. Another
potential endeavor in SL is called Teach You
Teach Me - Second Life Language Buddy Net-
work. Thanks to this network, language learners
can find SL conversation partners speaking their
target language.
The rapid growth of foreign language instruc-
tion within SL suggests that there exists an increas-
ing need for a reference which instructors can use
as a starting point in learning how to incorporate
virtual worlds such as SL into their classes. This
chapter provides such a reference by guiding the
reader through activities which illustrate the use-
ful features of SL that facilitate innovative and
effective instruction.
The following sections of the chapter showcase
selected activities conducted in SL. The author
describes the activities, and provides annotations
referring readers to the theoretical underpinnings
that follow, explaining the rationale behind the
activity design. Following the showcase, the
author concludes with a discussion of the most
valuable technological and pedagogical aspects
of instruction in a virtual world.