“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.”
John Keats - 19th Century Poet
Background & Interest
Virtual Reality technology for English as a Second Language (ESL) students, in particular when it comes to facilitating social and cultural integration, is a dimension of mobility that certainly requires more attention. As someone who went through a few different ESL programs, at various schools, some twenty-odd years ago, I found the ESL program structure to be rigid, content to be dry, and strictly focused on teaching the English language, grammar structure, vocabulary, and pronunciation. There was never adequate emphasis on how “we” as “new Canadians", could deploy the language in real-life situations. Surprisingly, reviewing the existing literature continues to suggest that researchers are still finding the ESL classes rigid, where they fail to address the students’ social and cultural needs.
Literature Review
Smith et al., (2008) conducted research in a number of Massachusetts schools and based on students and teachers’ feedback, concluded that the inability of most US schools to meet the academic needs of ELLs is a national concern (Smith et al., 2008). The authors presented case studies that showed that only the schools that continuously had innovative strides were successful in meeting ELL targets and goals (Smith et al., 2008). In other words, having an ESL program for newcomers is only the bare minimum, and implementation of the program or “what” the students can do, and “how” they do it, is more important. Ogbu (1992) emphasizes that school and ESL program success depends not only on what schools and teachers do, but also on what students do.
The question that remains unanswered is, how would virtual reality help address some of the shortcomings of the ESL and ELL programs? Literature review reveals that VR technology can facilitate learning by enabling students to (Whitelock, 2000):
· Visualize abstract concepts
· Observe events at atomic or planetary scales
· Visit environment and interact with events that distance, time or safety factors make unavailable
· Master, retain, and generalize new knowledge when they are actively involved in constructing that knowledge in learning by doing situation
· Develop participatory environments and activities that can only exist as computer generated worlds (things and places with altered qualities)
· Interact with a model that is as motivating or more motivating than interacting with a real thing
Personal Experience
In my opinion, for the most part, the deficiency of ESL programs is due to lack of proper teacher development, poor curriculum design, lack of technology availability, logistical/equipment hurdles associated with using the available technology, and most importantly, not using students’ voice/feedback as a catalyst to drive change in ESL programs. Additionally, budget constraints associated with ESL programs, makes it difficult to take the students beyond the constructs of the four walls of the classroom for them to experience the real world, where the language will be deployed. In other words, enabling the immigrant students to experience the real world is not always feasible for all social/business situations. Thus, the ESL programs, to some extent, fail to give students an education that would fully enable them to be prepared for a new society, with different values, customs, standards, practices, and norms.
ETEC 523 – Course Relevance & Core Competency
As discussed in Week #4 discussions of this ETEC523 class, Virtual Reality is one of those emerging mobile technologies that enables the learners to experience and retain information at an enhanced level. The most important affordance of using Virtual Reality in language classes would be allowing ESL students to virtually experience scenarios where they are expected to deploy the language. Enabling students to experience such situations first-hand, enriches the learning experience. The mobile VR experience for ESL students, can exemplify what it means to experience something that was never experienced before. The transformation of practice, could mean having a more engaged class, and higher levels of absorbing the information.
Transformation of Practice
The Virtual Reality technology, has the ability to take ESL students beyond the constructs of the four walls of the classroom. Virtual Reality can enable ESL students to experience real-life situations, which could potentially be anxiety provoking for a new immigrant. Teaching the content of an ESL book to students is one thing, but teaching the fine cultural intricacies is quite different. For instance, for an ESL teacher who is trying to incorporate cultural and social lessons that deepen students’ understanding of Canada, what is better than actually taking the students to real scenarios/environments using the VR technology? Topics such as shopping, attire, table manners, job interviews, public transit, personal space, handshakes, eye contacts, driving, concept of time, eating etiquette, negotiating, and bargaining, are only a few examples of such scenarios that would support the practical application of VR technology in ESL classrooms. The possibilities are endless!
Conclusion
The deep connection with the real-world situations, would expand the language learning process so the practice goes beyond a linguistic class, and becomes a social/cultural experience. Additionally, using VR in ESL classrooms could be seen as some form of gamification which has the potential to motivate and captivate students further. Kolarska & Lyubomirova (2020) conducted research where they placed students into two groups to measure their performance against three tasks. One student group learned the concepts through games (Group 1) and the other group learned the same concepts through non-game methods (Group 2). The analysis of the data revealed that “the children from Group 1 (taught through games) had 67.9% higher results in task 1, 67.9% higher results in task 2 and 81.6% in task 3” (Kolarska & Lyubomirova, 2020).
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