1. Rounding off: Starting up:
ViTAAL Ton Koenraad NIFLAR
TELLConsult

2. The ViTAAL Project
 GOAL
Researching the contribution of 3d MUVEs to
Language Education.
Focus on oral skills.
 Joint project:
Schools &
Teacher Ed.

3. The ViTAAL Project
• R & D for 3 Activity Formats:
1. Language Village:
training & testing
2. Interactive narrative:
LanguageQuest
3. Events and
Fun Activities

4. Format 1: Virtual Language Village
•Teachers
• Student
Teachers &
Trainers
•Fellow pupils
Pupils

5. IRL, what is Languagevillage | Langueville | Sprachstadt ?
 RL-simulation with physical
props as scenes for
everyday communicative
situations
 Teachers, native or
competent speakers take
on roles and/or assess.
 Target group at 2ndary
Schools: mostly beginner
to intermediate level
(CEFR: A1-A2)
 A school-based, yearly
event.

6. Virtual Language Village
 Rationale:
More practice of oral skills
for RL language tasks
 Design principles
Blended approach:
- techer-led f2f sessions
& in-world sessions with
fellow pupils and student
mentors
- using additional
materials alligned to
textbook in use
- in-world assessment
training by student

7. Virtual Language Village: Organisation
 Production / Mentor Team
A’dam student teachers
(n=18)
 Materials:
paper based prep.
activities,
CEF Level A1-A2
194 pp.
 Participants
2 schools, 1 class each
Age: 13-14
Student teacher mentored
groups (size: n=3)

8. Virtual Language Village: technical features
 A variety of locations:
tourist info, cafeteria,
police station, baker’s,
village square, pond,
student hang-out,
etc..
 2 bots
 ‘professional’ avatars
 Voice-enabled, but…

9. Format 2. SurReal Quest:
an interactive detective story

10. The Interactive Quest
 Rationale:
Enhance the WebQuest
concept using story
development and
embedding ‘live’
interaction
 Design principles
- LanguageQuest design
criteria
- Competitive pupil teams
(n=5)
- teacher-coached f2f team
sessions
- in-world meetings with
story characters (student
mentors)
- assessment of (interim)
products by teacher

11. Interactive LanguageQuest: Organisation
 Production & Actor
Team
A’dam student teachers
(n=7)
 Materials:
- Original storyline,
- CEF-based inputs & tasks
( A2 – B1)
- specifically designed
LQuest template
 Participants
- 1 school, 1 class
Age: 16-17
- 1st year student
teachers (n=7)

12. Teacher Ed. Curriculum Module
 Theoretical input:  Output
- TBLT & SLA principles - Language Village:
- Methodology for oral Textbook
skills training supplementary
- Task design principles materials
- CEFR & Assessment: - LanguageQuest
criteria & instruments &
procedures - Events:
Registration website &
 Practical experiences: self access prep.
- Materials development materials
- Fluency training
- Online assessments

13. Evaluation & Research
General Focus: Feasibility
 Proof of concept for Learning Blend: learning potential,
added value, win-win?
 Mapping of conditions
 Materials & Activity
design
 Performance-based
assessment

14. Evaluation: Pupil perspective
 Interesting, nice change  Did and learned equally
little as in f2f lessons
 Spent more time than
usual after school hours  3D world not very inviting
(looks, interactive
 Learned more: facilities)
- vocab,
- talking about self,
 Technical (voice) &
organisational problems
ordering things, giving (partner presence)
directions
 extension of the virtual
 More awareness of: village needed: a wider
- relevance of grammar / variety of shops.
pronunciation for
communication
- personal knowledge &
skills gaps

15. Evaluation: Teacher perspective
 Pupils enthusiastic,  More class-based
more motivation & preparation time
time on task, less needed for online
inhibition sessions
 More authenticity in  Success factors:
tasks, language use: - timely delivery & quality
attention for accuracy of prep materials
- operational technology
- teacher competences:
 More opportunities for classroom management,
differentiation &
independent work  ICT-skills
 Enjoyed working with  Allignment of class
new formats activities with student
mentors agendas

16. Evaluation:
Student teacher perspective
 Great learning  Design task:
opportunity: very time consuming
- designing materials
- getting peer-feedback in
 Organisational
design process problems:
- pupil presence
- teamwork
Practicing interaction
& teaching skills:  Technical issues:
- interlocutor role - voice
- giving feedback to pupils - AW- interface skills
- doing assessments

17. Evaluation:
Teacher educator perspective
 Great chance for linking  Collaboration with schools
theory to practice is vital
 Implementation of
experiential learning in  Current module is too
teacher ed. demanding: further
phasing of curriculum
content
 Critical trainer’s skills:
- coaching student production
teams
- personal ICT / AW skills

18. Issues & constraints
 Institutional
- Hard & Software:
Availability 3d browser,
capturing software,
headsets, VLE…
- Curriculum embedded
activity
- Pedagogy match
(staff, materials)
 Virtual World Software
 ICT skills

19. Future Developments
 Implementation in partners’ curricula
 Scaling up (languages, formats, sectors)
 Exploitation model (partnership
expansion)
 Further research:
- Promotion of L2 use?
- face & content validity of assessments
- pragmatics (teaching & assessing)
- SLA?

20. So much about the ViTAAL Project:
any questions / comments?
For papers see:
www.koenraad.info/vrall

21. NIFLAR EU
pro
ject
200
9 – 20
Networked Interaction 11
in
Foreign Language Acquisition
&
Research

22. Partners
Coordinator
U. Coimbra
U. Palacky TELLConsult
Affiliate partners: U. Nevsky and Novosibirsk Technical University, U. Concepción, 4 sec.
schools

23. NIFLAR Objectives & ambitions
 Exploring the added value of video-web
communication (VWC) and virtual worlds
(VW) to development of communicative
and intercultural competence in L2.
 Development of design principles for
effective L2 tasks
 Development, application and evaluation
of tasks according to the design principles
 Contribute to international research:
CMC, ICC, Pragmatics, blended learning

25. Exploring the added value of
VWC and VW
 Opportunities for real-life and virtual
synchronous communication with native
speakers of the target language
 Opportunities for creating culture-specific
virtual contexts for contextualised
communication

26. Evaluation grid for task design in
video-web communication and virtual worlds
Design principles:
 For communicative competence in L2
acquisition
 For intercultural competence in L2
acquisition
 For the application of VWC and VW in L2
acquisition

27. Video conferencing:
ADOBE CONNECT

28. Design principles for the application of
Video Web Communication
Video-web communication:
 Personal contact is relevant
 Nonverbal interaction is relevant
 Only communication partners are present
 Visual context outside communication partners
is irrelevant

29. Voice-enabled 3D World

30. Design principles for the application of
3D Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds:
 Visual context around communication partners is
relevant
 Context is specifically created or applied for
context-specific conversation topics
 As in real-life, others might interfere
 Contexts might be adapted (simplified,
exaggerated) in order to promote awareness
and learning

31. Interaction focused on students
Two target groups:
 Foreign language learners of Dutch,
Portuguese, Russian and Spanish (also at
secondary level)
 Pre-service teachers of Dutch, Russian and
Spanish

34. Importance of adequate tasks
 Characteristics of appropriate tasks for
virtual interaction
 Standardised format
 Level (CEFR)
 Teachers and pre-service teachers
designing, piloting and adapting tasks

35. Research Focus
 Interactions: Conferencing & 3D
 Tasks
 Specific aspects: ICC, pragmatics,
negotiation of meaning

36. Deliverables
 A framework for task design
 A collection of tasks and scenarios
 Guides for: Teachers, Teacher Educators & CMC research
 A 3D world & facilities for its future exploitation
 Master theses, publications, conference presentations
 Dissemination website

37. Thank you
Any questions
or
Comments?
Ton Koenraad
TELLConsult
www.niflar.eu