Learning Language through Immersive Story Telling in a 3D Virtual Environment

Affordances Of 3D Virtual Environments For Language Learning

There are two main characteristics of 3D virtual environments (Dalgarno & Lee, 2010) that provide users with the sense of immersiveness (Driver & Driver, 2009): representational fidelity and learner interaction. Representational fidelity is achieved through realistic graphical representations of environments and objects that appear 3D to human perception, smooth object motion and view changes, and the use of avatars to represent users. Learner interaction could be achieved through view control, navigation and object manipulation, scripted objects that respond to human actions, and verbal or non-verbal communication with other users. Sense of immersiveness is a continuum (Driver & Driver, 2009) rather than an experience that can simply be dichotomized as a presence or absence; it is also dependent on the degree of engagement with the senses of the users, and the meaningfulness and desirability of the activities to the users. Thus, immersive experience is created when users respond to the visual, tactile, or auditory stimuli and when users participate in activities that require collaboration or interactivity with objects or people. Although advancement in technologies has made possible additional features like realistic 3D audio that simulates spatial depth or the use of haptic technology to provide kinesthetic and tactile feedback (e.g., CAVE project by Cruz-Neira, Sandin, & DeFanti, 1993), we do not consider these features to be necessarily defining characteristics of 3D virtual environments.