Presentation for the 43rd ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL IATEFL CONFERENCE CARDIFF 31ST MARCH - 4TH APRIL 2009

1. 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

2. contents
Context & Beliefs
Students’ & Teachers’ backpacks
Digital Student & digital teacher
MUVEs as VLEs
Language teaching in SL
Simulations

3. context

4. serious game
not a videogame

5. SL - as a VLE
Multimodal communication
Sense of presence
Social dimension
Interaction: environment, objects,

6. beliefs
“psychologically held
understandings, premises, or
prepositions about the world
that are felt to be true”
Richardson 1996

7. sts’ backpack: beliefs
Beliefs may have a
profound influence
on learning behavior.
(Cotterall, 1995)
Learners’ belief systems cover a wide
range of issues and can influence
learners’ motivation to learn, their
expectations about language learning,
their perceptions about what is easy or
difficult about language, as well as the
kind of learning strategies they favor.
(Richards & Lockhart, 1996:52)

8. Sts’ comments
- 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 + experimental with VLE
are grammar related
- The environment is fantastic
- A stimulating and enjoyable way to
learn a language
+ Traditional - Props and scenes helped me
remember the vocabulary

9. sts’ comments

10. 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)

11. T’s comments
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.
What I find most
challenging about
SL is that I don’t We had a lot of fun in class because
know how sts feel sts were very engaged in the task
about the tasks. I and afterwards we had a very
interesting discussion about their
cannot ‘read’ their learning preferences.
faces.

12. Digital
Teacher
Digital
Student

13. Traditional
- expects teachers to pour knowledge
- is dependent on the teacher
- feels safer with grammar lessons
- prefers routines to unexpected situations
Digital Student
- 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

14. Traditional
- transferring methodology from the real life
class, either grammar-based or CLT-based
- not exploiting the MUVE potential enough
- having a “digital accent”
Digital Teacher
- experimenting new MUVE methodology
- exploiting the MUVE to find its learning
potential and effectiveness
- thinking as a “digital native”
Innovative

15. Type of Ts & Sts in SL

16. language teaching in SL
Course:
- integrative skills
- experiential learning
- situational
- virtual immersion

17. language teaching in SL
Independent modules:
-separate skills
(conversation practise)
- separate language systems
(grammar lessons)

18. Objectives - not explicit enough?
Learner/teacher training for
language learning in a MUVE
simulations

19. Simulations in the FL class
situational
PBL / CLIL /
learning by doing not a role-play
cognitive
challenge different type of
assessment

20. Traditional simulation structure

21. Adapting traditional simulations
to language learning in MUVEs
briefing
simulation
debriefing
explicit language informative feedback
objectives
enabling tasks

22. To achieve the ying-yang
provide informative
exploit the “gaming”
feedback
dimension
make objectives engage
explicit learners
actively
train learner &
teacher consider
learners’
beliefs
take advantage revisit your
of the MUVE own beliefs

23. Cristina Palomeque
cpalomeq@xtec.cat
Joan-Tomàs Pujolà
jtpujola@ub.edu