Foreign Language learning in Second Life

Second Life is especially suited to younger learners of foreign languages because they already see the internet as a natural place to learn and play. Marc Prensky (author of Digital Game-Based Learning, McGraw Hill, 2001) refers to this generation as "Digital Natives" because they have grown up within a digital world.

A growing movement of foreign language educators is exploring the potential of virtual worlds. The SLanguages 2007 symposium on 23 June 2007 brought together language educators to share experiences of teaching languages within Second Life and explore how best to use the virtual world. "SLanguages 2007 served to explore the major issues for language education in Second Life, and guided educators towards best practice" says Gavin Dudeney, whose education consultancy company, The Consultants-E, organized the virtual conference.

Although Second Life will introduce an internal voice chat soon, some language teachers have already been using messengers such as Skype to fill this gap. "Languages are all about verbal communication" says Howard Vickers, "so we were very keen to make sure that the students are talking and listening within our 3D virtual classrooms. To do this we use VOIP alongside Second Life". Tools like Skype have additional advantages by allowing the teacher and student to simultaneously work together on the same document. Source: (http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/secondlife.php)

Congratulation! My blog created.

Today is Jan.14 2009. I created my blog in IDT744 at the Dr.Whitehouse guidance.