Learning English in VR: opportunities and challenges
In a previous blog post I talked about the experience of teaching English in Virtual Reality (VR)for the first time. As part of that course we carried out some research with the students into their reactions and feelings of studying in VR and gathered some insights into how they felt about learning English through this novel medium. In this blog post I’d like to report back on what we learnt from them and explore the opportunities and challenges that VR offers for learning and teaching English as a foreign language.
The state of commercial VR
Before doing that though, I just want to put our research into a wider context and say a little about the commercial availability of VR. If it’s not a type of technology that’s easily accessible to most people, then it’s difficult to see it as a viable platform for language learning.
Until recently, it wasn’t really a technology that was widely used or adopted and tended to be the province of die-hard enthusiasts. About eight years ago we did see the emergence of low-cost headsets such as the Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard (see picture below). You inserted your mobile phone into them and could have a very basic VR experience. Shortly after this we saw high-end headsets emerge such as the HTC Vive, much more immersive and realistic, but incredibly expensive since you needed to have both the headset and a pretty powerful computer to run it.
In the last few years we’ve begun to see devices, such as the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 pictured below, that combine the better elements of these low and high-end devices into something that is more commercially viable and potentially useable in an education setting.
Not too expensive at around $300, they are completely wireless devices so can be used anywhere and they are able to create decent levels of immersion. They are essentially quite powerful mobile phones and — like mobile phones — you can download many different apps and games to them. Things such as sports, rhythm and exercise apps are particularly popular, I have one of these myself and love playing table tennis and doing a couple of rounds of fitness boxing in the morning to keep myself fit.
Language learning in VR: the research
There has been some research into the opportunities and challenges of learning English and other languages in VR, but it’s still fairly limited since it’s such a new technology and not as accessible as ubiquitous devices such as computers and mobile phones. Also, there hasn’t been a huge number of software or apps developed specifically for students and teachers to use for language learning, so that limits studies even further. But let me give a brief overview of where we are at.
In terms of the opportunities, VR is good for creating motivation and engagement (Dalgarno and Lee, 2010; Faiola et al., 2013; Chen, Hung and Yeh, 2021), possibly because it’s such a different experience and the fact that you are fully immersed in the world. There’s also limited research that suggests it can help with vocabulary learning and retention (Legault et al., 2019; Alfadil, 2020; Tai, Chen and Todd, 2020), assist with transfer of language to real life contexts (Dalgarno and Lee, 2010; Lan, 2020; Scavarelli, Arya and Teather, 2021) and can help reduce anxiety in language learning (Huang et al., 2021).
Various researchers have noted that because it’s such a new technology, we have to be careful that these possible learning gains in VR are not just due to the novelty of using the headsets (Tai, Chen and Todd, 2020). There’s also the issue of a lack of real world and long term studies into VR usage in language learning (Scavarelli, Arya and Teather, 2021), again possibly due to the issues of price and accessibility. The studies tend to occur over a short period of time or in inauthentic contexts as the headsets have to be brought in specifically for that purpose.
Our English course in VR — what we wanted to find out
I think the lack of real studies spurred us on with our research into learning English in VR as well as the development of software from a company called Immerse that allowed for synchronous live lessons. Designed specifically with English language lessons in mind, this app is accessed by students through their headsets — limited to the Oculus Quest range at the moment — and by the teacher through the computer. The teacher has a range of user-friendly tools to make the lesson pedagogically authentic such as lesson planning features, integrating whiteboards and slides into the lesson — as well as the ability to put students into teams and groups.
The real benefit of the software though is that you can move swiftly from one location to another to situate the students in authentic contexts for the language, from a fast food restaurant to an office. Both students and teachers can ‘change’ their avatar to suit the context or the personality of the individual.
We were fascinated to try out this software and carry out some action research to answer some questions we had, including:
Does learning in VR encourage students to speak more freely?
Does communicating via an avatar reduce nerves and anxiety?
Does VR help create a better sense of ‘place’ than online learning via Zoom or similar tools?
Does VR help them remember vocabulary and language better?
Does VR help them concentrate better than online or face to face classes?
We ran a course with nine Japanese students over a five-week period, each week there were two classes of one hour. The focus was specifically on speaking as we felt that VR worked best for productive skills. Of the nine students, five agreed to participate in our research which involved a series of surveys during the course and then a longer individual interview with each of them at the end to tease out more details about their experience.
Learning English in VR — student responses
With the surveys and the interviews we gathered a decent amount of data, and certain themes seemed to emerge from these. Below you can read some quotations from the students around these topics with some comments after each one.
Theme one: a sense of place
“It gave me unforgettable experiences…..we can go many places” (student 1)
“The reason why I liked the wizard classroom is because the fantasy places like this can only be enjoyed in VR.” (student 2)
“It is so good experience, because in VR we go to many place, I can use many situations speaking English, so difficult in face to face.” (student 4)
“The reason why I liked Airplane is because I felt like I was traveling in. I could learn English conversion with fun.”(student 3)
“I can’t go there in the real world.”(student 1)
Clearly the ability to be immersed in a specific location was very appealing to students and they could see the link between the language they were using and the context they were placed in. This certainly links back to the research findings about VR helping with transfer of language into real life contexts.
Theme two: communication
“I’m feel free to speak talk English — because I don’t look others face” (student 2)
“It was more interesting talk in VR with other student or with you [the teacher], because it’s characters” (student 3)
“It is so comfortable, because maybe I can speak more in VR. I feel [people] not looking at me.” (student 4)
“I feel comfortable, I speak English without being embarrassed..but sometimes I couldn’t figure out the right timing to start speaking” (student 1)
“Giving a presentation in VR have both merits and demerits. I’m not nervous compared with a face to face because I can’t see other people’s faces. And standing on VR stage is quite fan. However, what I should speak without gesture is a demerit. What I can’t see their reaction is also a demerit.” (student 1)
“One thing I liked was the thumbs up gesture, you can communicate by gesture, that can’t be done in Japanese classrooms, a frankly environment” (student 3)
The use of avatars and being hidden behind a character clearly supported a reduction in student anxiety and a increased willingness to speak more freely in English. The lack of visual — especially facial — feedback though was clearly an issue, making it difficult to pick up on turn taking cues or to judge whether people were responding positively or negatively to what they were saying.
The last comment is an interesting one — though takes a little explanation. The student was talking about the ability in VR to use the controllers to do basic gestures such as thumbs up and clapping. He liked the fact that he could use those to respond to what a fellow student or teacher said without speaking out loud. It was something that was pervasive throughout the course and really added to the generally positive atmosphere throughout the five weeks.
Theme three: memory and attention
“It [VR] is better for remembering new words than face to face..I can experience good things and I remember.” (student 1)
“But you know, the difference is, I can’t do other things. And I can concentrate in a VR course” (student 3)
“I didn’t feel like I was paying attention.” (student 4)
The second comment is an interesting one, highlighting the fact that VR is fully immersive. Students can’t really do anything else during the lesson such as checking their mobile phones, staring out of the window or flicking to another browser tab. In this sense they are possibly more concentrated than in either face to face or online classes.
The last comment, however, explores the flip side of that. The VR locations are often so rich in objects and things around them to interact with that it’s very easy to be distracted away from what the teacher or fellow students are saying. We certainly saw evidence of this in class.
Below you can see a short clip from one of the lessons. This is a good example of contextualised learning as the students are engaged in a role-play in a fast food restaurant. You can also see the use of some of the teacher tools such as the whiteboard for incidental language in the background.
Learning English in VR — our findings
What can we take away from all this? It was a very limited study so any conclusions are tentative, but the comments and survey responses from the students do seem to support the research findings mentioned earlier about VR helping to reduce anxiety, enabling better transfer and recall of language and increasing general confidence and willingness to speak.
We also think VR might also help develop a positive classroom atmosphere through the use of non-verbal gestures and signs, though this is something that would need to be explored and researched more.
In terms of the challenges of learning English in VR, the lack of facial and visual clues make turn taking and feedback much more difficult, though this might improve in time as the technology gets better. We also agree that the novelty factor might play a large part in the positive responses from the students, it would be interesting to see their reaction after a much longer course in VR where that initial buzz from using a new technology has worn off. Would there still be enough innovation to sustain their interest?
Future possibilities of VR
Despite some natural reservations, the general response from both the students and the teachers to the VR lessons was incredibly positive. Partly this may have been due to the course coming off the back of over a year of disembodied online lessons via Zoom and other platforms and the ability to feel like you were in the same ‘place’ with your fellow students and teachers — however illusory that may be — was a welcome relief.
But I don’t think it was just that. The ability to communicate from behind an avatar makes a huge difference, students clearly felt they were occupying a slightly different persona when in VR and that enabled them to express themselves much more willingly than in a face to face context. And this also applied to the teachers. We felt we were also playing a role and this perhaps allowed us to relax more with the students and behave more like a peer than a teacher.
We think there are tremendous possibilities for the use of VR in language learning, particularly as a way to create authentic contexts for students to role play functional language in. As the software and the hardware improves, we’ll see more and more realistic and detailed situations and avatars and the issues of visual and facial clues might recede.
What we will need to develop is a clear pedagogy of VR delivery, of how lessons are structured within this space, how task types are created and how teachers are trained. Several researchers have highlighted the importance of this (Parmaxi 2020, Lin 2015, Scavarelli 2021) and it was something that me and my fellow teacher felt as we were teaching the lessons. While there are a lot of similarities to how you might structure or approach a face to face or online class, there are specific skills — both technical and pedagogical — that are needed by teachers to make the lesson successful.
As a simple example, for the teacher, moving around the locations involves using certain keys (WASD) and the mouse to rotate. This is something that gamers are familiar with, but not something that all teachers would find easy. They would need a period of training to adjust to this.
On a pedagogical level, we’ll need to think of task types that exploit the contexts that VR can offer, perhaps they’ll be more emphasis on extended role playing and speaking activities, and less on teacher-centred activities. We’ll also need to think about how VR lessons fit into a course or curriculum. Will courses be purely delivered in VR or be combined with more traditional lessons with teacher input? These are all questions that will need to be explored in the coming years as the technology matures.
Final thoughts
When I started teaching 28 years ago, I couldn’t imagine a future where — with a flick of a button — you could move to any location you could imagine and communicate with students based all over the world. And yet here we are. I understand that for some teachers and students this might seem like a scary and alien idea, but the technology is not as complex and inaccessible as some might believe and the opportunities for immersive language learning are truly incredible.
Notes
I delivered a webinar recently on this same topic, which goes into a bit more depth if you are interested.
I’d like to thank Immerse for their kind support of our research and for providing free access to their software.
References
Alfadil, M. (2020) ‘Effectiveness of virtual reality game in foreign language vocabulary acquisition’, Computers & Education, 153, p. 103893. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103893.
Chen, C., Hung, H. and Yeh, H. (2021) ‘Virtual reality in problem‐based learning contexts: Effects on the problem‐solving performance, vocabulary acquisition and motivation of English language learners’, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 37(3), pp. 851–860. doi: 10.1111/jcal.12528.
Dalgarno, B. and Lee, M. J. W. (2010) ‘What are the learning affordances of 3-D virtual environments?: Learning affordances of 3-D virtual environments’, British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(1), pp. 10–32. doi: 10.1111/j.1467–8535.2009.01038.x.
Faiola, A. et al. (2013) ‘Correlating the effects of flow and telepresence in virtual worlds: Enhancing our understanding of user behavior in game-based learning’, Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), pp. 1113–1121. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.003.
Huang, X. et al. (2021) ‘A Systematic Review of AR and VR Enhanced Language Learning’, Sustainability, 13(9), p. 4639. doi: 10.3390/su13094639.
Lan, Y.-J. (2020) ‘Immersion, interaction, and experience-oriented learning: Bringing virtual reality into FL learning’, Language Learning & Technology, 24(1), p. 15. doi: 10125/44704.
Legault, J. et al. (2019) ‘Immersive Virtual Reality as an Effective Tool for Second Language Vocabulary Learning’, Languages, 4(1), p. 13. doi: 10.3390/languages4010013.
Lin, T.-J. and Lan, K. Y. (2015) ‘Language Learning in Virtual Reality Environments: Past, Present, and Future’, Educational Technology & Society, 18(4), pp. 486–497.
Parmaxi, A. (2020) ‘Virtual reality in language learning: a systematic review and implications for research and practice’, Interactive Learning Environments, p. 13.
Scavarelli, A., Arya, A. and Teather, R. J. (2021) ‘Virtual reality and augmented reality in social learning spaces: a literature review’, Virtual Reality, 25(1), pp. 257–277. doi: 10.1007/s10055–020–00444–8.
Tai, T.-Y., Chen, H. H.-J. and Todd, G. (2020) ‘The impact of a virtual reality app on adolescent EFL learners’ vocabulary learning’, Computer Assisted Language Learning, pp. 1–26. doi: 10.1080/09588221.2020.1752735.
