Share Paper: Second Language Students' Experiences of Second Life: From Text Chat to 3D Play

  1. Mei-Ya Liang, National Central University, Taiwan
Wednesday, October 28 10:00 AM-11:00 AM Grand Ballroom C

Abstract: This paper reports on a semester-long online collaborative project, in which 20 second language (L2) students co-constructed content and activities to play in Second Life (SL). Drawing upon the concept of language play, the author shares her pedagogical orientations to L2 learning, writing, and communication and discusses students’ experiences based on a questionnaire designed for students’ self assessment. The results of this study show that the participating L2 students expressed little confidence in exploring the chat-dependent, game-like, and avatar-based virtual community. This study suggests that students should not only play roles, engage with class tasks, and learn SL skills within ...