Second Life and College English Teaching in Taiwan

Abstract

This study examined how Second Life (SL) can be infused into a college English course for 25 students through task design of four activities. SL provides affordances of interaction and immersion which are conducive to their English learning and SL can easily establish an authentic environment for communication. It is argued that sound pedagogy with appropriate tasks, instead of 3D virtual world software alone, guides SL applications in the multi-member community (instructor, teaching assistants, students, and other users not in this class) advancing toward language learning objectives or sense making in student learning. The ecological views and complex system notion of how learners interact with the SL environment in English offer new insights into how TELL scholars examine the extent to which an array of variables in the system interconnect and react to achieve our learning goal in context and across a time line as illustrated in the student narratives.