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Second Language Teaching in Virtual Worlds: The Case of European College Students under the ERASMUS Program

Second Language Teaching in Virtual Worlds: The Case of European College Students under the ERASMUS Program

Paulo Frias (University of Porto, Portugal), Ricardo N. Fernandes (University of Porto, Portugal), and Ricardo Cruz (University of Porto, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2011 |Pages: 26
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-545-2.ch025
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Abstract

This project is a proposal for a case study that aims to describe and understand communicative and pedagogical processes involved in Second Life® (SL™) in a context of second language learning, by modelling in-world lessons of Portuguese as a second language for ERASMUS students1 arriving in Portugal. The purpose is to provide examples of situated e-learning driven activities and perceive how an immersive context stimulates learning by involving students in a virtual reality situation, where real life language context situations are provoked and where ‘not possible in real life’ learning routines happen. This will allow experiencing the advantages of this platform compared to physical life teaching and learning contexts, through the inherent characteristics of this medium, such as the synchronous and simultaneous use of voice and text.
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The E-Learning Context In Second Life

In recent years, some educators come up with ideas of transforming existing platforms to provide rich multimedia experience, together with open-ended content creation and large global communities, the MUVEs (Kapp & O'Driscoll, 2010). The aim is to use MUVEs as an immersive learning environment to provide a new perspective of implementing situated learning or other methods through the use of new technology.

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