Second Life – An Opportunity for Second Language Teaching?

More than 300 universities and some instructors use Second Life as an educational tool or invite students to join them in virtual classrooms. For example, DeSalles University created a simulation of Dante's Inferno being with teacher and student notes. Then as an English teacher, I cannot help but think SL, the game is also an opportunity for second language teaching?

For most students , learning a second language can be boring. They are easily tired of mechanical activities such as memorizing grammar rules, phonetic symbols, and vocabulary. How can we motivate students to learn a second language? I feel that role playing game is a good idea. I often adopted the game in my teaching activities. Second Life gives us a new idea. I propose that we use SL in creating second language lessons in which students can act in different roles of the stories in textbooks. Beth Ritter-Guth , an English instructor of Desalles University gave a try. She taught literature in SL in which she build a 3D environment. I believe many students will love the new teaching method. At the same time, we can try to invite a native speaker to be online and supervise the class. His/her responsibility would be to correct students’ accents and grammar mistakes, and give suggestions. Students will probably be easily involved and more enthusiastic about learning a second language in a new learning environment. This sounds really promising. Maybe I will suggest or I myself try such a teaching method in my future teaching activities.

On the other hand, I have two concerns about using Second Life in second language learning. As Daniel mentioned, Second Life is a “two edge sword.” Students can become easily addicted to the game. Moveover, there would be a problem finding teachers to build the 3D visual environment in SL. First, they usually lack skills for building 3D models; then, how many teachers would like to spend time on creating a scenario and a space?

A new method often takes a long running time. Whatever teaching in SL opens a window for teachers and students.