Research - Glenn's IBLI site

5.2. Lesson plan

Introduction

Computer-assisted language learning has come a long way over the last several decades: from early primitive drill-and-practice computer software programs of the late 1970's to today's ultramodern hypermedia and web 2.0 tools. One of the latest breakthroughs in CALL, and perhaps an ultimate future direction of educational technology, comes in the form of the virtual reality classroom. The largest virtual reality space on the Internet is Linden Lab's Second Life.

Second Life is aptly named. It allows its users to shed their skin, abandon the trouble and stress of their everyday life and meet an international community of online users looking to explore, meet new people, see and try new things and, in some cases even - practice and learn foreign languages. Joining this virtual world is easy, free and takes no longer than a couple of minutes. Second Life allows its users to create a character that represents them in this virtual parallel world. This character has an avatar that can navigate through virtual reality cities and 'islands' within Second Life. In fact those who have joined Second Life are not referred to as 'characters' but as "residents" - thus giving the experience an even more real-world and humanistic affect.

Enhancing this phenomenon is a plethora of characteristics that authenticates the Second Life experience. Residents in Second Life can sit, walk, dance, fly through the air, drive cars and even go shopping. Everything from real estate property, clothing, cars, scuba diving equipment, etc. can be bought with Second Life's own currency - linden dollars. Residents can wonder around virtual reality remakes of vibrant, renowned cities built in the mould of their originals while enjoying a drink at a café, playing a game of chess with a fellow resident, or going sightseeing just like a normal tourist. Residents can even take photographs and make video recordings of their experiences!

With a population estimated to be at around 13 million (Linden Lab, 2008) - larger than Beijing or Paris - Second Life has now gained global media attention and is now becoming a hot marketplace to do businesses. Businesses of all types, non-profit organizations, embassies, and educational institutions are represented all across Second Life. Amongst the educational institutions are several virtual language schools that are constantly developing new ways to promote and facilitate language learning in a virtual world.

One of Second Life's key pedagogical features is its' many ways to promote communication amongst its residents. Second Life's residents come from all over the world and can communicate with each other by way of text chatting with a group, instant messaging individuals, or even conversing orally - as long as a user has a microphone and headset. Language is all around in Second Life. Be it communicating with fellow residents, reading pamphlets or notecards or listening to a conference or prerecorded message - Second Life users are constantly being exposed to language.

The adventure begins on the aptly titled 'Orientation Island' (see Fig 1.1). Here new residents can catch a first glimpse and edit the appearance of their newly conceived three dimensional avatar whilst meeting fellow Second Life newcomers whose users are sitting on computers in places as far away from Brazil to Bahrain. It is also on Orientation Island that new users learn to navigate, move and communicate with their avatars. There are also tutorials on how to build objects and 'teleport' themselves from one virtual island to another.

These virtual islands that can be teleported to and from contain almost everything one might find in the real world. Along with the re-creations of famous cities and monuments, embassies, non-profit organizations, universities and language schools are nightclubs, shops of all sorts, beaches. Given the cultural diversity of its users, Second Life has become a hot prospect in Computer Assisted Language-Learning. Kip Boahn, founder of virtual reality language-learning island, Second Life English claims that there are currently over 1,000 language teaches actively teaching language learners via text or voice chat (Ruberg, 2008). Using Second Life as a case study, in this paper I will explore the potential of language education in a multi user virtual environment. I will give a brief description on what Second Life is, evaluate some of its technological and pedagogical aspects and explore various ways Second Life can be implemented in a language-learning curriculum

Fig. 1.1: Orientation Island - where it all begins

Fig. 1.2: Sitting and enjoying a drink with language learners in Prague

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

2. Literature Review

Most of the articles and journals directly relating to Second Life researched gave generally positive findings of language education in the virtual reality realm of Second Life. Jessamie Cooke-Plagwitz's comprehensive New Directions in CALL: An objective Introduction to Second Life, appearing in CALICO Journal 25(3), explores the advantages and disadvantages to using Second Life as a platform for language learning. Amongst the advantages listed are the seemingly infinite amount of tools and environments that can be used to facilitate language learning on Second Life as well as the new-found confidence many language learners find themselves with communicating behind the mask of their avatars (Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008). On the other hand, Peterson implores that more investigation is needed in order to maximize language education's effectiveness in her 2005 PacCALL Journal article, Learning interaction in an avatar-based environment: a preliminary study, which uses an older, less populated MUVE, Active Worlds as a case study (Peterson, 2005). Vance Stevens; meanwhile, suggests that Second Life may be some sort of ahead of its time, trial product of future directions in educational technology in Second Life in Education and Language Learning. (Stevens, 2006)

There has been much research done on many of the 'facets' of CALL using Second Life, such as computer-mediated communication. Chapelle and Jamieson, in their book Tips for Teaching with CALL give several examples of successful research done involving CMC in language education (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008). Research done by Dhongping Zheng, in his dissertation Affordances of 3D Virtual Environments for English Language Learning: An Ecological Psychological Analysis, also supports the effectiveness of CMC in MUVEs using a case study from a middle school in Changchun, China (Zheng, 2006).

Many ideas for this paper came from attending the SLanguages virtual conference held May 23-24, entirely on Second Life. Presentations by notable CALL specialists such as Gavin Dudeney (E-consultants, presentations on Second Life teaching tools & building workshop), Kip Boehn (Second Life English), Howard Vickers (Avatar Languages), Mark Karstad (Dubai Woman's College), Paul Preibisch (English Village) and Iffaf Khan (Language Lab) were especially informative. Karstad, responsible for the Dubai Women's College virtual international exchange program on Second Life, and Boehn, founder of Second Life English - were especially forthcoming with their ideas and experiences about language learning. Many of the aforementioned practitioners contributed, or were mentioned in several other articles used for this research, such as Forbes's Bonnie Ruberg's How To Spark Remote Learning (Ruberg, 2008) and Howard Vicker's Language Teaching Gains Second Life (Vickers, 2007).

Multi-user virtual environments have developed as a continuum of multi user object oriented domains and digital role-playing games - both of which had considerable research work done by the likes of Anne Derryberry (Derryberry, 2007) and Sykes, Oskoz and Thorne. The latter three who collaboratively investigated language-learning prospects in Web 2.0 digital role playing games in their article Web 2.0, Synthetic Immersive Environments, and Mobile Resources for Language Education. (Sykes et al, 2008)

Second Life statistics and figures were taken mainly from Linden Lab's Second Life Virtual Economy Key Metrics (BETA) Through April 2008 excel spreadsheet, downloaded from Second Life's mainpage, www.secondlife.com. The Second Life website was also responsible for providing a lot of the technical information, such as system requirements, as was Mitch Wagner's Information Week article, Inside Second Life's Data Centers (Wagner, 2007)

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

3. Description

There are multiple ways to define, or categorize Second Life from the perspective of CALL. Skyes, Oskoz & Thorne brand Second Life as 'an open social space' (Sykes et al., 2008, p 534). Gavin Dudeney claims it to be, "a three-dimensional online synchronous environment" (Dudeney & Hockley, 2006). Anne Derrberry labels Second Life as a 'serious game", proposing that it is a "convergence of virtual worlds, games, social networking, and rich Internet applications" (Duberry, 2007, p 2).

Perhaps the most widely recognized classification is that used by Cooke-Plagwitz, who refers to Second Life as a three-dimensional multi-user virtual environment, or 3-D MUVE (Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008). 3-D MUVE's are the web 2.0 development of MUDs (Multi-user Domains) and MOOs (Multi-user-domain Object Oriented). Both MUDs and MOOs were early-internet versions of RPGs, digital 'role playing games' - used in, but not specifically designed for language learning (Walker et al, 2008). Skyes, Oskoz & Thorne also label Second Life as an open social virtuality - one of three types of 3-D virtual environments. The other two being the more games-based multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and synthetic immersive environments (SIVs), the latter which integrates characteristics of the other two types of 3-D virtual environments for more goal-directed purposes (Sykes et al, 2008, p 528).

Although Second Life is being glorified as an up and coming utility in Computer Assisted Language Learning, the program was not designed specifically for the purpose of language teaching, or education even for that matter. Second Life was originally designed by Phillip Rosedale's self-founded company Linden Lab to give its users, or residents, two things they could find nowhere else on the Internet. Firstly, it allows its users to create alternative versions of themselves - in a world created and ruled by its residents. As the founder himself says, "If we create the world from the bottom up, it can be re-imagined." (Rosedale, quoted by Maney, k., 2007) The second unique attribute of Second Life is that it offers a more humanistic experience to computer-mediated communication. Maney argues this point, "much of the Internet is devoid of people. If you're shopping on Amazon.com, you have no idea if you're alone or if 20,000 other people are there at the same time" (Maney, K., 2007).

If creating a community is what the creators of Second Life wanted, that is what they got. Second Life is now a digital archipelago, boasting over 13 million residents spread out over twelve hundred square kilometres of virtual land (Linden Lab, 2008). Residents in Second Life can 'teleport' themselves from one island to another, book-marking their favourite stops while making and inviting friends to join them.

Becoming a resident is a straightforward process. All a prospective member must do is go to the Second Life website, download the program (assuming their computer meets) and then create an account. Once this is done, the new resident establishes him/herself by creating a 3-D avatar and selecting a name. Second Life residents can edit their physical appearance and clothing to their likings, walk, run, swim, fly, dance, and even drive cars and boats with their avatars. Not only that but residents can even shop and build, buy and sell land and property on Second Life.

This latter function has meant that Second Life has become a booming business. While there are no immediate financial obligations in joining Second Life, not everything there is free. There are restricted private islands and events on Second Life. Residents can buy items and accessories for their avatars ranging from clothing to cars to scuba diving equipment even. At the same time however, residents can also make money trading on Second Life. Residents can build objects that can be sold. They can buy and sell property and even set up their own businesses on Second Life - where they can offer their services to fellow Second Life residents. Language teaching is amongst these services readily available on Second Life.

Economically, Second Life is flourishing. Residents use the local currency, the Linden dollar, to trade goods and services with each other. Linden dollars can be bought via the Second Life website in order to accommodate these transactions, or gain access to restricted areas. There are currently approximately 270 Linden dollars to one US dollar. In the months of March and April 2008 alone - almost 5 billion Linden dollars (US$ 20 million) were recorded in Second Life transactions. With 81 million US$ being exchanged in 2007, this shows a dramatic increase in average monthly transactions in just a year (Linden Lab, 2008).

Fig. 2.1: Free building lass at SLanguages 2008

Fig. 2.2: Peru's Second Life 'island'

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

4.1 Evaluation - Pedagogical aspects

According to Linden Lab's statistics, only half of Second Life's currently active users are located in countries where English is spoken as a first language. Users behind the avatars come from over a hundred countries with even Antarctica supplying 200 registered residents! (Linden Lab, 2008) This multicultural background of its residents makes Second Life a unique case study for language learning.

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has become a well-researched development of CALL as it encourages social interaction through negotiation of meaning and comprehensive input and output amongst its learners (Yamada & Akhori, 2007). Research has shown CMC to be an instrumental tool for developing communication skills in language education (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008). The technological advancement of MUVE's such as Second Life give a three dimensional approach to computer-mediated communication. In addition to text and voice chatting, there is also a visual component to the learning environment. "Research has shown that content-based English Language Learning curriculum, immersion in target language environments, and interaction with target language speakers have positive effects on language learning." (Zheng, 2006, p 3)

Second Life offers language learners to not only interact and communicate through voice and text with native speakers of their target language - but with the added goal of exploring a visually stimulating new virtual world. This interaction, taking place in real-time, in a multi-dimensional virtual environment makes the CMC language experience all the more stimulating for both learners and educators (Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008). There is also a strong argument that some language learners feel even more comfortable communicating behind the masks of their avatars. Cooke-Plagwitz supports this theory:

"Many educators who employ SL (Second Life) for instruction indicate that communication amongst their virtual students is livelier and more engaged than in their face to face classes… This sense of community assists in breaking down barriers to communication that can exist due to restrictions which exist in text-based environments and even in face-to-face learning situations." (Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008, p 549)

There are currently about 200 universities or education institutes operating on Second Life. Harvard and Stanford Universities have spaces (Second Life.com, 2008). Even the Dubai Woman's College (DWC) has its own island on Second Life (Golden, 2008) - where they have, according to E-learning coordinator Mark Karstad, conducted virtual international exchanges (or 'VIEs') with universities in America. During his SLanguages 2008 presentation, SL in conservative Societies: Considerations from the Middle East, Karstad (under the Second Life pseudonym ''Buy Shorts') endorsed the experiment saying, "the teachers who ran the VIEs said that they (the students) were able to work and demonstrate English language skills." (M. Karstad, personal communication, May 23, 2008).

SLanguages 2008, the second annual conference organized by Gavin Dudeney, and put on by the consultants-E, on language education in virtual worlds, brought together language education practitioners, learners and researchers - in the form of their avatars, together for a 24-hour conference on Second Life. Amongst the presenters were developers and representatives of some of Second Life's most prestigious language institutes. Some of the most notable of these include Language Lab, Avatar Languages, English Village, Second Life English, ESL Second Life and International Language Lessons.

These virtual language centers operate similarly to real world language schools. Prospective students find the institute's website and send an email enquiring about their services. Or they may just teleport themselves to the institutes island were they meet a representative or are greeted by a 'bot' (programmed avatars), who answer to FAQs and give links to where they can find additional information (Preibisch, 2008).

Many of the aforementioned schools offer individual or group sessions with professional native speaking language instructors. The institutes, some of which even own their own islands, are equipped with virtual classrooms, conference halls, sometimes discos even. ESL Second Life offers more grammatically based text-chat lessons as well as communicative voice-chat lessons, as well as excursions around other Second Life islands. Avatar Languages, founded by Howard Vickers, takes a thematic approach to its pedagogy - with classrooms ornamented to suit the theme that best suits the class. For instance, a classroom may be decorated to resemble a bank or the inside of an airport (Vickers, 2007). English Village, founded by Paul Preibisch (or as he's know on Second Life, 'Fire Centaur'), send their students out on 'webquests', or adventures where they must move around and teleport from place to place in Second Life, picking up clues or notecards in order to solve some sort of mystery. Second Life English uses 'holodecks', or specially designed rooms that can change their inner-environmental surrounding within and instant to best suit the theme needed for the class (Ruberg, 2008).

Built by Kip Boehn (aka 'Kip Yellowjacket'), Second Life English also offers classroom spaces for independent language teacher-residents and advertising boards where they can promote their services. Instructors are allocated a restricted 'launch pad' area where they can create multiple-choice grammar exercises, present PowerPoint slides and decorate as they please. However, Boehn encourages his teachers to not just stick to the launch pads but to, "…explore all of Second Life as a potential learning environment." (Boehn, personal statement, May 15, 2008)

Fig 4.1.1 - Gavin Dudeney presenting at SLanguages 2008

Fig. 4.1.2: Students from Ukraine, Italy and Japan interact with native speaking
instructors located in the United States and the United Arab Emirates during one of
ESL Second Life's voice-chat lessons.

Fig 4.1.3: An ESL Second Life 'text chat' lesson.

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

4.2. Evaluation - Technological aspects

Technically speaking, Second Life is considered an MUVE, or multi-user virtual environment. MUVEs in some ways continued the legacy of digital role-playing games (RPGs) in foreign language learning. RPGs went online originally in the form of MUDs (Multi User Domains), which were mainly text-based, before also becoming visually based in the form of MOOs (Multi-user object oriented) (Walker et al, 2008). While MUVEs may have developed from MOOs, they are more intricate three-dimensional environments where users can log on at any time and interact with objects, their surroundings and others (Walker et al, 2008). Unlike MUDs and MOOs, MUVEs are not necessarily 'games' but rather, "open social spaces designed as a simulation of life." (Skyes et al, 2008, p 535)

MUVEs use a modelling language called Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML). VRML has allowed programmers to develop 3D virtual worlds in which users can move around in, objects that can be seen or tampered with from any angle and characters, in the form of humans, animals or creatures - that can interact with each other (Owen, H., 2006). VRML is a little similar to HTML in the sense that it is a modelling language that interprets commands written in text. VRML supports JAVA, JavaScript, animation and sound. As it embodies interactive vector graphics, VRML differs from HTML because its objects must be placed using X, Y and Z coordinates (HTML Center, 2007).

When an avatar moves from one geographic area to another, it is actually being transported between processors or servers. This is because each of Second Life's geographical areas runs on separate simulations, or 'sims', which are run on separate processors on a server (Wagner, 2007). The state of the art 3-D graphics means that Second Life's technical requirements are not always compatible with all computer systems. An NVIDIA 6000 Graphics Card series or higher, or specific ATI Graphics Card series are suggested in order to run Second Life. There's a long list of graphics card brands that will not be compatible with Second Life. Second Life will not function with dial-up Internet, and Windows XP and Vista (Mac OS X 10.4.3 or better) are the recommended operating systems for affective running. While the minimum required computer processor speed and memory space is 800 MHz / 512 MB - 1.5 GHz / 1 GB is recommended (Secondlife.com, 2008).

Second Life also has a tendency to crash or freeze at inconvenient times, something else that needs to be taken into consideration when implementing the program into the language-learning classroom. This is an issue that its developers are currently working on improving. Second Life could previously hold up to 100,000 users simultaneously. To improve its performance with its users, Linden Lab is currently trying to increase this threshold so that tens of millions of users can be simultaneously logged on at once (Wagner, 2007).

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

5.1 Integration

If technological requirements are not a problem, there are many different ways in which Second Life can be implemented into the language classroom. A lot depends on how much an institution wants to dedicate to Second Life. A university or multi-discipline educational institute may want to own their own island on Second Life The Dubai Woman's College not only uses Second Life for EFL purposes but also for hospitality management, economic studies, and to perform X-ray simulations and medical and health demonstrations amongst other things (Golden, 2008). If an EFL department, institute, group of instructors or individual instructor has long-term goals with Second Life, a purchase, or rental of some space - such as Second Life English's launch pads would be beneficial. Through private space - interactive grammar quiz templates can be produced, PowerPoint presentations can be delivered, posters and notecards displaying texts can be exhibited, even song lyrics or video transcripts can be handed out, accompanied by their audio or video streams (see figs. 5.1 & 5.2). For the more technically savvy teachers, holodecks or rooms designed demonstrating a particular theme can even be created (Maney, 2008).

Buying and maintaining property in Second Life can be an expensive course of action. The smallest 16-acre island can cost up to $1,675 for an initial purchase (although there are discounts for certified educational institutes) and maintenance fees wind up costing about $300 a month (Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008). A cheaper, and perhaps even more affective way of using Second Life is to simply utilize the public spaces, tools and services offered to residents. There are plenty of places to explore on Second Life that can lead to beneficial language-learning exercises and classroom discussions. These so called 'excursions' can be beneficial to both educators and learners. "Language educators who wish to work within Second Life will find that the possibilities offered by the application are seemingly endless…." Plagwitz-Cooke argues, "…. Language learners have an almost infinite variety of surroundings and avatars to describe." (Plagwitz-Cooke, 2008, p 550)

An educator may choose to take their students on a 'virtual field trip' to Moscow or New York - while the students describe the things they see and how they are similar and different from their real world. Virtual historical monuments, such as Mexico's Chichen Itza (developed by the Mexican Tourism Board) come fully equipped with information booths displaying notecards containing text about the monuments they represent. A teacher may send students to a site looking for answers to a set of questions, such as those listed below. Answers can be obtained through reading notecards, or communicaing with other users, or Bots via text or voice (See Figs. 5.3 & 5.4).

Examples of questions used for Chichen Itza site:
1) "Who built Chichen Itza?"
2) "What is a 'Cenote'? How many are remaining and what is the name of one of them?"
3) "What was Chichen Itza trying to become on 07/07/07?"

Example of answers:
1) "Chichen Itza was first built by the Mayans."
2) "A Cenote is a water hole. There are two remaining. One is called "Cenote Sagrado" (Sacred Cenote)."
3) "Chichen Itza was trying to become one of the Seven Wonders of the World."

One of the advantages of Second Life is that the communicative experiences learners are subjected to are generally entirely authentic. Notecards, texts or whatever scripted instructions they may read usually have not been designed for language learners. Also they get a chance to converse with random native English speakers. This also presents a slight disadvantage, as there is no telling whom they might meet or they'll talk about. There is also no control over what places learner might visit, see or read. There is a hope/fear that some learners may take their Second Life learning experience outside the classroom and continue their virtual reality life long after the course has finished. For this matter, it is important that an instructor explains this thoroughly to their students, perhaps even having them sign sort of a waiver to avoid any liabilities. (Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008)

Fig. 5.1:
A multiple grammar choice exercise on Second Life English (developed by Kip Boehn)

Fig 5.2: reading lyrics by text while audio plays in background.

Fig 5.3: Chichen Itza

Fig 5.4:
Utilizing notecards for a Second Life activity exposes learners to authentic texts.

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

5.2 Integration - Lesson Plan

Aim	To discuss different ways to help the environment. Grammar focus: making suggestions / giving advice / modals
Level	Intermediate - advanced
Time	75 minutes
Preparation	Hardware Word-processor - minimum requirements: Internet connection: Cable or DSL Operating system: 2000, XP, or VistaComputer Processor: 800 MHz Pentium III or Athlon, or betterComputer Memory: 512 MB or moreScreen Resolution: 1024 x 768 pixels Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 2, GeForce 4 MX or better OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250 or better OR Intel 945 chipset Software Second Life (version 1.19.1.4) Knowledge Students should have some previous Second Life experience
Procedure	Pre-computer work: Teacher splits class into groups of 3-4 and has each group list 10 ways / things we should do to save the environment. Groups discuss their answers. (15 - 20 minutes) Computer-work: Students teleport to "Green Zone". http://slurl.com/secondlife/Grundfos/2/2/0 Students must walk along the rainbow colored "CO2 line" and collect the following information: a) List 10 ways you can reduce your carbon footprint. b) Fly to the two African villages - how are they similar and how are they different? Find out answers by talking to African villager Bots. c) What is located at the top of the hill? Read the notecard on the side of the hill. What kind of energy is this? (30 minutes) Post-computer work: Discuss findings with the class in groups. (15 minutes)

Fig 5.1.1: Students walk the rainbow CO2 line on the Green Zone Island

Fig 5.1.2: Talking to African villager 'Bots'

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

6. Conclusion

Through MUVEs, the virtual reality classroom represents an ambitious and remarkable future direction of computer-assisted language learning. Using Second Life as a case study, we have investigated a number of ways in which such an environment can be used in educational settings, most notably language learning. Second Life has plenty to offer progressive language educators who want to immerse their learners into an environment where the target language is the communication medium. Not only that but Second Life integrates the four macro-skills of language learning while offering a plethora of interactive, visually stimulating environments that can be traveled to a from simply by the click of a mouse.

To maximize the benefits of the virtual reality classroom, further research of its pedagogical implications are necessary (Pederson, 2005). Such research is currently being conducted, as shown at the recently successful SLanguages 2008 symposium - attended by an ever-expanding community of language-learning educators, researchers and learners, continuously exploring new ways to develop language learning in a virtual world. Conferences such as these held entirely on Second Life, with avatars representing the delegates and attendees - allow the growing number of Second Life language educators and learners to collaboratively discuss past educational experiences while further developing the program's language learning potential. (Vickers, 2007)

Many e-learning educators already see Second Life as an ideal stage to facilitate language learning (Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008). Some CALL enthusiasts believe that MUVEs will not only influence, but also transcend the way we use computers in language learning. While admitting that Second Life should still be utilized as merely a 'supplementary' language learning tool for the time being, Second Life English's founder Kip Boehn foresees the potential impact MUVEs might soon have. "Virtual worlds will eventually be able to act as stand-alone platforms for learning." (Boehn, personal statement, May 15) While this statement may seem to be a bit of an exaggeration, the opportunities multi-user virtual environments offer are vast - not only for language learning but in many facets of education.

Second Life's liberal censorship policies and technological requirements may render its implementation and usability for some conservatives and digital immigrants. However, we have seen with the Dubai Woman's College's Virtual International Exchange program how even in some of the most conservative environments - language learning can still take place within Second Life. Also, as the rising technological tide lifts all boats, institutions around the world are foreseeing the needs to keep their technological apparatus up to date with the latest technological trends. Second Life may not be the great panacea of educational technology; however, it may represent, as Vance Stevens says, some sort of "prototype for some future form of learning." (Stevens, 2006, p 2) However, we have seen that given the correct implementation - even today, multi-user virtual environments offer many benefits to both language educators and learners.

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan

7. References

Bretag, T. (2006). Developing 'Third Space' Interculturality Using Computer-Mediated Communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2006) 981-1011

Chapelle, C. & Jamieson, J. (2008). Tips for Teaching with CALL: Practical Approaches to Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Pearson Education, Inc. White Plains, NY

Cooke-Plagwitz, J. (2008). New Directions in CALL: An Objective Introduction to Second Life. CALICO Journal, 25 (3), p-p 547-557

Derryberry, A. (2007). Serious games: online games for learning. Adobe Systems Inc. San Jose, CA.

Dudeney G. & Hockly N. (2006, October 20) "Talk to the avatar", The Guardian Weekly. Retrieved: May 21, 2008 from http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/teaching/story/0,,1929362,00.html

Golden, L.L. (2008, April 27) Dubai Women's College opens new campus in Second Life. Amine Info. Retrieved on May 24, 2008 at http://www.ameinfo.com/154668.html

HTML Center (2007). Electronic reference. Retrieved: May 18, 2008 at http://htmlcenter.com/blog/vrml/

Linden Lab (2008). Second Life Virtual Economy Key Metrics (BETA) Through April 2008. Downloaded from SecondLife.com on May 27, 2008 at http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

Maney, K. (2007, October 27) The king of alter egos is surprisingly humble guy. USA Today. Retrieved: May 21, 2008 from http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20070205/secondlife_cover.art.htm

Owen, H. (2006) Virtual Reality and 3D Sites. In Dixon D., Baba, H., Cozens, P. & Thomas, M., (Eds.). (2006) Independent Learning Schemes: A Practical Approach. Dubai: TESOL Arabia

Peterson, M. (2005). Learning interaction in an avatar-based environment: a preliminary study. PacCALL Journal Volume 1 No. 1 Summer 2005, Pp. 29-40

Preibisch, P. (2008). Bots for educators! [Handout] SLanguages 2008. Retrieved; June 1, 2008 from http://www.slanguages.net/archive.php

Ruberg, B. (2008, March 19) How to spark remote learning. Forbes.com. Retrieved: May 19, 2008 from http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/03/19/life-lessons-gaming-tech-innovation08-cx_br_0319innovations.html

Second Life (2008). Electronic reference. Retrieved: May 15, 2008 on http://secondlife.com/

Skyes, J.M., Oskoz, A. & Thorne, L. (2008) Web 2.0, Synthetic Immersive Environments, and Mobile Resources for Language Education. CALICO Journal, 25(3), p-p 528-546.

Stevens, V. (2006) Second Life in Education and Language Learning. TESL-EJ, December, 2006, Volume 10, Number 3. Retrieved: May 17, 2008 from http://tesl-ej.org/ej39/int.html

Vickers, H. (2007). Language teaching gains Second Life: Virtual worlds offer new methods to teach languages. Omniglot: Writing Systems and Languages of the World. Retrieved: May 18, 2008, from http://omniglot.com/language/articles/secondlife.php

Wagner, M. (2007, March 5). Inside Second Life's Data Centers. Information Week. Retrieved: May 18, 2008 from http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/hosted/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197800179&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev=

Walker R., Davies G. & Hewer S. (2008) Introduction to the Internet. Module 1.5 in Davies G. (ed.) Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers (ICT4LT), Slough, Thames Valley University [Online]. Retrieved: 28 May 2008 from http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm.

Yamada, M. & Akahori, K. (2007). Social Presence in Synchronous CMC-based Language Learning: How does it affect the productive performance and consciousness of learning objectives? Computer Assisted Language Learning, Vol. 20, No. 1, February 2007, pp. 37-65.

Zheng, D. (2006). Affordances of 3D Virtual Environments for English Language Learning: An Ecological Psychological Analysis. Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut.

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Description

4.1 Pedagogical aspects

5.2. Lesson plan