=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3013/20210217
|storemode=property
|title=In Their Own Words: Teachers Experiences and Activities in 3D Virtual Worlds for Foreign Language Teaching
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3013/20210217.pdf
|volume=Vol-3013
|authors=Muhammet Demirbilek,Durmuş Koç
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/icteri/DemirbilekK21
}}
==In Their Own Words: Teachers Experiences and Activities in 3D Virtual Worlds for Foreign Language Teaching==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3013/20210217.pdf
In Their Own Words: Teachers Experiences and Activities in 3D
Virtual Worlds for Foreign Language Teaching
Muhammet Demirbilek 1 and Durmuş Koç2,3
1
Süleyman Demirel University, Faculty of Education, Isparta, 32260, Turkey
2
Uşak University, Karahallı Vocational School, Karahallı, Uşak, 64700, Turkey
3
İstanbul University, Informatics Department, İstanbul, 34134, Turkey
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative research study is to investigate teachers’ perceptions of the use
of the 3D simulated virtual world Second Life, and factors that affect their willingness to
integrate virtual worlds into foreign language instruction. Specifically, participants’
perceptions toward issues and viability of their current practices of Second Life (SL) were
examined. The potential of SL in education has yet to be fully explored and exploited. Eight
educators who have been teaching English as a foreign language online and utilizing SL to
adult learners since 2006 were interviewed. Data analysis consisted of three phases: Phase I-
Breakdown of the text; Phase II- Examination of the breakdown; and Phase III- Integration of
the examination. Themes of the interviews that surfaced during the interviews were categorized
into current practices, perceptions, and viability. Analysis of responses indicate that SL is used
as pedagogy and another form of education for meeting students’ social needs using today’s
advanced technology. Regarding the viability of SL were as follows: building 3D
representations of learning objects; attractions: animation/graphic design/ virtual words/games;
and cultural diversity The viability and future of SL are promising; in particular, Second Life
has great potential as a 3D simulated virtual school that provides newly developed pedagogy
to meet participants’ social needs.
Keywords 1
3d simulated virtual computer-assisted language learning worlds, multi-user virtual
environments, second life, second-language learning, simulated learning environments.
1. Introduction
As the capability and sophistication of information and communication technologies improves
educational institutions seek innovative ways to transform the traditional teaching into new online forms
[1]. The potential of simulated three-dimensional (3D) multi-user virtual worlds as a tool for foreign
language teaching and learning attracts the attention of educators [2, 3]. Increasing popularity of 3D
multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) among educational institutions has coincided with the
availability of these tools which can be designed, or adopted, to support situated immersive learning
experiences and represent users with avatars (picture icons or three-dimensional characters).
Furthermore, 3D virtual worlds (VWs) are computer simulated and networked spaces that resemble the
real world with rules, the ability to roam, distance and gravity [3]. In addition, they allow the learner to
have a strong sense of “being there” [4] and interacting with multiple users, through pseudo-physical
contact, similar to real-world situations, simulation of physical movement within the learning
environment, and positioning of self and objects within the 3D virtual space [2, 5]. One area that shows
particular promise for the use of 3D MUVEs in foreign language learning is simulating experiences that
allow the simulation of scenarios, real-time immersive interaction between students and instructors, and
ICTERI-2021, Vol I: Main Conference, PhD Symposium, Posters and Demonstrations, September 28 – October 2, 2021, Kherson, Ukraine
EMAIL: mdbilek@gmail.com (A. 1); akindurmuskoc@mail.com (A. 2)
ORCID: 0000-0001-7448-9206 (A. 1); 0000-0001-8719-444X (A. 2)
©️ 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
interaction with 3D spaces. These experiences have the potential to enhance the ability to function in
simulated and role-play language learning games in cultural contexts. MUVEs enable learners to access
virtual contexts, interact with digital artifacts, represent themselves through “avatars,” communicate
with other learners and with computer-based agents, and enact collaborative learning activities of
various types [6]. Second Life (SL) is the most striking example of the emerging multi-user virtual
world with 3D simulated and immersive features. It is a server-based, user-built 3D simulated virtual-
world environment which offers social and culturally simulated interactions for not only language
learners but also other learners who do not have opportunities to see different cultural contexts in real
life. The experiential nature of SL also meets instructors’ pedagogical needs. For instance, it provides
an environment for role-playing and simulation. Furthermore, SL provides appealing and culturally
relevant simulated spaces for foreign language learners of a target language to interact with native
speakers of the target language in culturally situated and simulated learning space. As MUVE becomes
an embedded medium throughout our daily lives, research into its use for foreign teaching and learning
has shifted its focus from the MUVE itself to how it can support learning theories and approaches. SL
can encompass the use of a range of foreign teaching tools that support learning theories such as
experiential learning [7], situated learning [8] and project-based learning [9]. For instance, in foreign
language education, students can participate in synchronous discussions using SL, allowing student
interaction that is typically not possible in other online environments. Furthermore, students can
virtually experience real-life situations, allowing repeated practice in a given environment. There is a
growing body of research that reveals the educational potential of MUVEs specifically SL [3, 10, 11].
Due to immersive and interactive nature, SL can be employed for social and cultural interaction in
foreign language learning [6, 12]. Although the potential of SL in foreign language education has been
stated in the recent literature [11, 13, 14], little empirical evidence has been available ad- dressing the
understanding of the roles of SL in foreign language instruction, how foreign language teachers employ
SL in their instruction and factors that affect their decision to integrate SL into language instruction.
Therefore, the current study was designed to begin to fill this research void. It is hoped that the study
can contribute to a wider understanding of research in 3D simulated virtual learning environments and
draw attention to foreign language teaching in SL. SL was chosen to explore due to one of the largest
and most well-known MUVE. Therefore, following research questions were explored in the study;
• What are EFL educators’ perspectives and current practices / experiences with SL as a foreign
language learning platform?
• What are EFL educators’ perceptions of SL as a simulated VW?
• What are the positive aspects of SL practices; namely, what is the viability of SL practices in
educational context?
• What do EFL educators’ view as issues, for potentially using of SL in educational context?
2. Research Methodology
A qualitative method was employed for this study because it allows the researcher to focus on
specific situations, events or people and emphasize understanding the meaning for participants in the
research, events, actions, situations and experiences they were engaged in or involved with [15].
Furthermore, according to [15], the qualitative approach allows researchers studying a relatively small
number of individuals or situations to understand the specific context within which the participants act,
and the influence that this context has on their experiences and actions. In this qualitative approach, the
researcher collected open-ended, emerging data through semi-structured interviews with the primary
objective of developing themes from the data [16, 17]. The interview questions were sent to three
experts with knowledge and experience of several years in using SL across the USA for content and
face validity. Two of these experts were researchers and also experts in both survey content and survey
format. Based on experts’ opinions, the semi-structured interview questions were re-organized; some
new items which seemed necessary were added while some others were removed. The aim of the
interview questions (see Appendix 1) was to investigate EFL educators’ perspectives and experiences
on using SL for foreign language instruction. Specifically, through interviews, participants’ perceptions
toward, issues of, and viability of their current practices of SL were also examined.
2.1. Setting, Participants and Data Collection
Purposive convenience sampling was used for this qualitative investigation, in order to reach the
desired specific group of EFL educators who have teaching experiences in SL. In order to select
individuals to be interviewed, the contact information of potential participants was collected from
educators via SL blogs, social networks, and a SL educators’ mailing list. Eight participants from this
poll answered and expressed their willing to be interviewed for the study. The interviewees were
contacted by emails with a request for their participation. The interview date and time were arranged
for each interviewee based on their availability. Furthermore, the context of the research was also
outlined in the message. Participants included people from eight different countries including the United
States of America, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Japan, Greece, Poland, and Finland. Because all of
participants were living in different countries and locations, interviews were conducted over the Skype
with English as the lingua franca. All interviews were recorded. Participants were also informed that
the material gathered would be considered confidential within the research team. Each interview was
semi-structured with fifteen questions, with room allowed for the participants to add their ideas,
thoughts, and stories, to aid them in accurately articulating perceptions of their experiences. Each
participant was also given the opportunity to provide additional information at the end of the interview
about their experiences that was not provided in their answers to other questions throughout the
interview.
2.2. Data Analyses
According to Creswell (2017), data analysis requires organizing, accounting for, and explaining
data, and making sense of data in terms of participants definitions of the situation, noting patterns,
themes, categories, and regularities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the data.
During the data analysis process for the study, data included content analysis of semi-structured
interview responses. To conduct the interviews, a series of 15 questions were developed using the
method of sketching out the domain of the topic (see Appendix 1). The questions addressed the
following: (a) the purposes of using SL, (b) the practices of SL, (c) perception about, experiences with,
and the usability of SL, and (d) its viability.
The average length of each one-on-one interview was about thirty minutes. The interviews were
transcribed in text format for analysis. Semi-structured interviewing is best used when researchers are
limited to one interview with participants or when several interviewers are involved in data collection
[17, 18]. At the beginning of each interview, participants were asked to provide demographic
information for the study, including their years in teaching English as foreign language online utilizing
SL and their location. Each interview transcript was read and reviewed several times and codes were
assigned for the major themes that surfaced. Interviews were analyzed using standard social science
methods for analyzing qualitative data [19]. The qualitative data from the interviews were analyzed in
three phases [20];
• Phase I. Breakdown of the text. This includes coding materials, identifying themes, and finding
patterns,
• Phase II. Examination of the breakdown. This includes explaining and examining the network.
Finally,
• Phase III. Integration of the examination. This includes explication of the patterns and elabo-
rating and refining the patterns to generalize the findings.
3. Findings
3.1. Identifying themes and building networks
Coding for this research involved organizing text data from the interviews into categories and then
labeling these categories with a term to help bring meaning to the statements. Based on the purpose of
the study and the underlying research questions, themes were identified and networks were built from
respondents’ answers. The themes were categorized into three categories: “Current Practices”,
“Perceptions”, and “Viability”. According to Maxwell (2012), the organizational categories serve as
“bins” for sorting the data for further analysis. Categories were derived from participants’ own words
and concepts [15, 21]. The Current Practices category includes purpose, current ownership of islands
or space in SL, and implementation in instructional context. The Perceptions category surveys
perceptions of SL as a 3D MUVE and a teaching and learning tool. Finally, the Viability category sheds
insights strengths, weaknesses, and challenges on using SL in educational contexts. Networks between
the categories were also developed. Based on the interviewees’ career pursuit in teaching English as a
foreign language, they rented or bought parcels on SL island from the land / island providers such as
New Media Consortium (NMC) and implemented technology into their teaching practices, yielding
positive perceptions of implementing SL into their teaching practice. Multiple strengths and benefits of
the 3D MUVE pedagogy of SL was connected.
3.2. Current practices
3.2.1. Purpose
According to the results, most SL educators’ primary reasons for employing SL were professional
development and to enhance their career of teaching English. They also mentioned getting in touch with
other SL language educators and having fun applying SL in teaching English as a foreign language.
Lastly, participants also expressed the reasons for starting to use SL was to pursue new teaching
methods in teaching English as a second language; besides, they thought SL was fun. All interviewees
stated that their primary reasons were professional development and to enhance their career of teaching
English.
3.2.2. Current ownership in SL
The participants were asked about their ownership islands or space in SL. Six participants reported
that they owned their own plots; one had his/her own headquarter, and the eighth rented a plot so he/she
was able to conduct teaching and learning. Participants addressed the reasons why having a personal
plot was important as follows: classroom management, stable meeting space for generating teaching
and learning experiences, preparation for students’ self-access materials and posting students’ own
work.
3.2.3. Implementation
The participants were asked about their implementations of SL as a tool for English language
teaching. Most of them chose to implement SL for the following reasons: SL serves an authentic
learning and teaching place and practiced educational activities. Participants prefer SL for doing
something he/she cannot do in real life, namely a jointed meeting where students can learn languages
and social languages, using different forms of language based on social settings, and interactions with
culturally rich spaces. The functions of SL frequently used by participants are local text chat, local voice
chat, IM text chat, conferences, meetings, building and buying objects and workshops. Moreover,
discussions, field trips, role-plays and simulations activities are also implemented as a teaching and
learning activities using SL.
3.2.4. Perceptions
All participants expressed positive perceptions toward SL as a teaching and learning tool, and SL as
a 3D MUVE. The reasons provided by participants for positive perceptions toward the SL were: creative
and artistic components of SL, situations similar to real life except lacking the emotions or facial
expressions, the ability to talk (voice), to record (voice, text, and photo), to play (such as flying,
swimming, sitting and skiing), and to network (friend); and finally, cultural diversity available in second
life – the broad range of people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and places that make
up SL.
While the interviewees reported positive perceptions of the efficacy of SL, they also addressed
technical issues, such as – lag, graphic cards, Internet speed, and crashes.
3.2.5. Viability
According to respondents, the viability of SL is promising. SL has great potential to build 3D
representations of learning objects with animation, graphic, role-play and simulation attractions. SL is
an engaging platform which allows users a “sense of being there”, a real sense of embodiment, the
immersive social environment, increasing the scope for authenticity futures allows the learner to
perform a real communication act with cultural clues in a virtual authentic learning environment. SL
provides opportunities in culturally diverse environments to language learners. Furthermore, 3D MUVE
offers teacher-training opportunities through its simulation and role-play feature.
Focusing on computer-mediated communication, one interviewee stressed that SL allows language
learners access to speakers of other languages in a way that the RW (real world) does not. Another
interviewee noted that SL is very useful in creating 3D learning environments – simulations of real-life
situations – and providing authentic environments for language learning. Yet another interviewer said
that SL provides a cost-effective way for instructors to give students access to the world through
simulation; students can access different languages than their mother tongues easily.
Induction, tutors and training needed to operate SL are the weaknesses of SL. In addition, technical
problems and lack of facial expressions are also cited as weakness of SL.
Technical issues, classroom management, difficulty of synchronous communication due to time
zone, training skills to operate SL and how to use it to attend the class in SL, lack of body language and
other forms of feedback and cultural difference are the main challenges facilitating SL in language
teaching.
3.2.6. Strength and Weaknesses
Strengths included authentic or semi-authentic material, interactive, fun, and motivation.
Participants focused in on the following weaknesses: Second Life needs (a) some induction; (b) more
training; namely, learners should be familiar with using a PC; (c) tutors need to be online almost like
synchronous classes; and (d) lack of body language.
One interviewee noted,
“It’s what teachers and learners make of it. Since it can be virtually anything, potential is unlimited.
Incredible, rich, context for teaching . . . face-to- face over distance . . . ability to do things students
can’t do outside of Second Life. Can’t usually ”fly up to X” in Thought Process Re-engineering lesson,
for example.
In addition, the interviewee mentioned technical problems, including the fact that Second Life
technology changes fast.
3.2.7. Strength and Weaknesses
All eight interviewees said they used local text chat, local voice chat, IM text chat, and conferences
in SL very often. Seven answered they participated or followed meetings in SL very often.
3.2.8. Educational Activities
Educational activities included workshops and conferences – Sloodle, Youtube viewers, vocab
activities as a presenter and learner– talks, conferences, meetings, visiting parts of foreign countries,
museums, concerts, and discos – activities through Google and Twitter – teaching, tutorials.
3.2.9. Future of 3D Virtual Worlds
The predictions from seven interviewees were positive and promising. For example, they mentioned
characteristics such as (a) advanced interface to the extent that people with physical disabilities can
move their bodies as freely as the people without disabilities, (b) more and more progress and culturally
and sexually non-biased safe place for education, (c) 3D web as a staple of education, (d) promising,
and (e) offering teacher training courses and/or material or lesson plans for teachers like they do for RL
or online classes. One interviewee made a negative prediction, such as “. . . VWs will never play a big
part in the mainstream . . . ”
4. Discussions
This section discusses the answers to the research questions underlying the study. As far as the
purpose of implementing SL into one’s teaching practice goes, SL meets the social demands of the
digital age, such as allowing people from across the world to share collective ideas without any time
and place limitations. The fact that participants can have learning and teaching experiences across
cultures, places, and time within 3D simulated space implies that SL is a more advanced application
than eLearning. SL provides authentic learning environments, joint learning places, and task-based
language practices that are impossible to build in the real world with the learners in different locations.
Through positive educational activities, such as collaboration, meeting with colleagues, teacher
satisfaction, such as having fun in teaching, as well as creating and building learning experience,
participants in this study have developed positive perceptions of SL as pedagogy. These findings are
also consistent with those reported by Molka-Danielsen and Deutschmann. They especially liked the
potential of SL to design and create educational experiences and situations similar to real life. They also
liked the ability to talk, record, play, and network. Finally, they mentioned cultural diversity and cost
effectiveness as other benefits provided by SL.
Technical problems have long created challenges with the use of technology for learning. Many
participants in this research study reported that lack of poor hardware such as inadequate graphic
cards, broadband connections for speed, sound quality, and technical problems have caused challenges
in their SL teaching experiences. Furthermore, distracting objects, lack of non-verbal clues, and time-
consuming challenge were also reported by study participants in their teaching experiences in simulated
SL. Indeed, it is important to minimize the issues as much as possible from the beginning of the learning
experience. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including providing overviews of the tools
used for the course and/or hands-on workshops with the technology that will be used in the online
learning experience. Based on reflections from the participants, SL as 3D MUVE has been found
beneficial to language teaching environment because of its immersive and interactive environments.
Further- more, it could be possible to use SL to provide field experiences of pre-service language
instructors. Moreover, it also provides an arena for language instructor to enact innovative pedagogies
such as student-centered interaction, authentic teaching with cultural clues to provide engaging and
constructive learning in 3D MUVE. 3D environments allow scenario-based simulations, which include
real time interaction between students and teachers, interaction with 3-dimensional (3D) spaces, and
self-directed study. Some key enabling features of the virtual worlds are the ability to construct 3D
environments that simulate real world situations; the ability to have a virtual identity to create a cross-
cultural self; and the ability to have participants from around the world participate virtually in
designated roles that convey new types of learning within the simulated environment. Furthermore, the
ability to facilitate linguistic immersion for a deeper, socio-cultural approach to language acquisition
and cross-cultural collaborations is in high demand in methods for teaching, especially with 3D
emerging virtual world technologies. Streaming videos, international collaboration, multi-users features
are suitable to implement the deep approach method to the learning of a foreign language. In deep
approach teaching methods, students need to examine the nature of what they perceive as “foreign” in
a foreign culture, their own foreignness as subjective speakers, and the ways in which cultural values
are reflected in the language. They also need to be guided in reflecting on their language acquisition
and on the target culture and to develop their own viewpoint by examining various the targeted language
worldviews. These critical capabilities rarely addressed by existing approaches in teaching foreign
language can be taught through cooperative learning work, discussion and debates, focused interviews,
and other discourse in a 3D environment.
One of the main criticisms of SL is the cost of using this virtual world. Construction 3D virtual space
needs hardware requirement to run the SL as client software which means extra financial cost for
individuals or educational institutions. In addition to the financial constraints, facilitation SL for
educational purposes that involves learning how to function in the 3D virtual environment and how to
build the physical structure and content. In addition to basic skills, building 3D educational spaces in
SL requires technical and software skills and time.
A further criticism of using SL as a learning environment is the misguided pedagogy of employing
SL to teach in old ways. Generally, it is the traditional, teacher-centered unguided instruction transferred
into the new 3D virtual environment. Other critics that have surfaced are misbehaving, virtual unwanted
content, and vandalism are the most common social problems in SL virtual environment.
4. Implications and Conclusions
Second Life is a 3D simulated virtual learning environment and another form of meeting social need
using today’s advanced technology. It has added more authentic and technical elements to the existing
practices of eLearning, which is Internet based. The challenges brought up by interviewees included
technical issues, classroom management, difficulty of synchronous communication due to different time
zones, training necessary to operate SL and how to use it to attend a class in SL, and lack of body
language and other forms of feedback. Further, classroom management in SL is difficult because there
may be students from various cultures across the world. However, all of the interviewees believed that
SL would overcome the above issues in the future.
The major points regarding the viability of SL were addressed as follows: building 3D
representations of learning objects; attractions: animation/graphic design/ virtual words/games; and
cultural diversity. The interviewees suggested overcoming these challenges by developing the advanced
interface to the extent that people with physical disabilities could move their bodies without limitation,
building culturally and sexually non-biased safe places for education, designing a 3D web as a staple
of education, and finally, offering teacher training courses and/or material or lesson plans for educators
to help facilitate their work. Participants want faster functionality and more stability in the software
platform, cost effectiveness for the initial equipment requirements, easier-to-learn building tools and
scripting, increased ability to import ready-to use objects from other programs, simpler ways to stream
media, and more seamless integration of most other standard-use software products into the simulated
SL virtual environment. Other issues that were highlighted as useful in this study related to technology
were the user’s experience and comfort level operating in SL. In this study, experience with the
technology influenced the participants’ perspectives of how useful the technologies were for SL virtual
environment. There is also a need to investigate which assessment tools can investigate and document
successful teaching and learning in this interesting and promising environment. The current study offers
several implications for practice and research. First, there is a need to develop effective instructional
strategies and design for foreign language courses in 3D simulated SL virtual world. The instructional
strategies and design should focus not only on the technological aspects of the course, but also on the
goals, objectives, and expectations for the foreign language learners. Second, there is a need to work
with educator as well as foreign language learners in SL to assist them in the development of computer
literacy and technical skills to utilize SL. Courses in SL are simulated and situated in dynamic location
and information is received in a variety of formats. Assisting foreign language educator and learners in
establishing strategies for managing their time may prove to be useful.
Finally, there is a need to work with EFL educator to assist them with establishing community or
feelings of connection for students in SL contexts. Therefore, EFL educators need to be trained to
integrating strategies for community building in SL virtual environments may assist with this effort.
Continued research related to community building strategies in a variety of contexts is also needed to
enable the advancement of best practices in the dynamic context of SL. The growth of simulated 3D
MUVEs will continue, and as indicated in this study, it will come with challenges. EFL educators
engaged in foreign language course in SL may have different qualities for a successful multiuser virtual
environment or elements that are challenging. Each experience will be unique to the each individual
EFL teacher. As EFL educators become more comfortable and adept at communicating and learning at
3D MUVEs, it will remain imperative that the best practices associated with these learning
environments continue to be explored.
In sum, the viability and future of SL are promising; in particular, SL has great potential as a virtual
school that provides newly developed pedagogy to meet participants’ social needs. Second Life is an
engaging platform having “sense of being there”, a real sense of embodiment, the immersive social
environment, increasing the scope for authenticity futures allows the learner to perform a real
communication act. Therefore, the SL environment contextualizes the language in the virtual synthetic
space, which may improve to practice of language skills in these environments.
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Appendix 1: Interview Questions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NmvG8WcGVkVPq4T3-
FI7rg2ooKqCNg eq/view?usp=sharing