Week 4 - Learning and teaching a language in Second Life

Week 4: Feb 1 - 7

Overview

An introduction to different methodologies, tools and places where languages are being taught and learned in Second Life. 

Learning outcomes 

By the end of this week, you should have done some of the following:

• have participated in some of the tours (guided or self-access) of language teaching/learning spaces in Second Life
• have taken part in a discussion about teaching and learning languages in Second Life
• have reflected on your visits and discussions in a blog post in the TLVW10 Ning
• have a better idea of the range of different possibilities for teaching and learning a language using Second Life
• be aware of how some people & organisations use Second Life for language teaching and learning
• have attended a presentation/demo of favourite (language) teaching tools of the more experienced members.
• have started to understand some of the benefits and challenges of teaching in a virtual world

Useful SL skills

Click this link to go to the SL skills list and tutorial videos.

Activities

1. Visit Virtlantis, which is an island owned by Kip Boan, a language teacher, who provides some space and facilities for other language teachers for free. For a small monthly fee, you can also have your own small teaching space. Try to find and talk to some teachers and students while there and report back in the Ning forum for this week.
2. Attend a guided tour of AVALON Learning, the home of the AVALON EU project ,a two-year project funded by the European Commission as a part of the Education and Culture DG Lifelong Learning Programme which aims to create and test language learning tasks and activities in Virtual worlds as well as creating and piloting a training course for teachers who would like to extend their e-learning skills to include virtual teaching worlds.
3. Go on a tour of the EduNation island owned by Gavin Dudeney. Talk to some educators you meet there. How do you like the place? What can educators do there? Report back in the Ning forum.
4. Visit the EUROCALL/CALICO Headquarters in Edunation to find out about the help and resources they provide for teachers
5. We will also visit the British Council Isle and find out about their work in the Main Grid and Teen Grid of Second Life, investigating the use of language learning quests
6. Participate in one of the discussions about different aspects of learning and teaching languages in Second Life.
7. Attend one of the scheduled (language) teaching tool demo/presentation sessions. If you are an experienced SL user, select three of your most favourite (language) teaching tools, set them up in the sandbox and, if possible, demonstrate how they work and how you (would) use them in your lessons.
8. If possible, attend the talk & tour at Monash University by Xilin Yifu, lecturer in Mandarin Chinese about teaching Chinese to students in Second Life.

Resources

• Educational tools shop (Dudeney Ge's)
• Educational Freebie Mall at Montclair University
• Info Island & the Alliance Library
• Ohio State University: SL guide an freebies
• Educator's tool gallery, and more

Optional Readings/Viewings

• ICT for Language Teachers: Second Life 
• Second Life English website (no sign-up required)
• English Village website
• SurReal Language Quests
• Language learning Quests in Second Life (MA dissertation about the work on the British Council Isle in Teen Second Life) 
• British Council Isle - video introduction
• Second Life as a Social Learning Environment
• Dogme ELT for Virtual World Language Learning
• Reflections on Teaching English in Second Life
• Virtual world language learning (on Wikipedia) 
• EUROCALL and CALICO in SL (interview with Graham Davies)