In their article, Ishizuka and Akama (2012) come up with very useful and practical questions, such as:
1. How can the structure of a communication task, a communicative interaction, and negotiation of meaning be designed in SL?
2. How can the design be implemented using Linden Scripting Language (LSL)?
3. Is the created learning space effective in language learning?
The article begins with a brief literature review, which allowed the authors to identify the gaps in previous studies. They found that the controllability of SL to utilise the functions had not been given much attention. Ishizuka and Akama (2002) note that SL has many functions available for language teaching, such as playing recorded sounds and creating objects which can perform human-like actions (for example, gestures). To enhance these functions, they argue that SL should be controlled by means of creating and allocating the appropriate objects to practice tasks, as well as programming the interaction structure.
Ishizuka and Akama (2002) designed and implemented an automatised interactive space, where the robotic agents would work as interlocutors of learners. Based on the review of SLA theories and analysis of the available functions in SL, they concluded that the design is best to be based on the two SLA theories: task-based language teaching and the interaction hypothesis.
After the automatised interactive space was created, Ishizuka and Akama (2002) carried out an empirical pilot study to investigate the usefulness and/or deficits of this space and examine the number of occurrences of negotiation of meaning. They recruited 10 students who were given the shopping task. The results of this pilot study showed that more than 70% participants had positive impressions with the system and they would like to continue their studies in the automatised space.
It is somewhat hard to infer if this automatised space is effective, because the students' progress has not been measured. In fact, the issue of measurement of students' success is quite controversial. None of them articles on SL that I have read so far actually suggest how it can be done. It would be also interesting to see at least some of the transcripts to be able to analyse the discourse - how the meaning was negotiated and whether there were any hiccups from the agents' side. Nonetheless, this article raised one of the things that I was wondering about - how one can control the teaching process in SL in terms of communication and how SLA theories can be operationalised in SL.
Reference: Ishizuka, H. & Akama, K. (2012). Language learning in 3D virtual world: Using Second Life as a platform. E-learning and Education, 1(8).
It is somewhat hard to infer if this automatised space is effective, because the students' progress has not been measured. In fact, the issue of measurement of students' success is quite controversial. None of them articles on SL that I have read so far actually suggest how it can be done. It would be also interesting to see at least some of the transcripts to be able to analyse the discourse - how the meaning was negotiated and whether there were any hiccups from the agents' side. Nonetheless, this article raised one of the things that I was wondering about - how one can control the teaching process in SL in terms of communication and how SLA theories can be operationalised in SL.
Reference: Ishizuka, H. & Akama, K. (2012). Language learning in 3D virtual world: Using Second Life as a platform. E-learning and Education, 1(8).
Things that you touched on presenting this article which I pay attention to: there are very useful questions indeed, you talk about SLA task based language teaching and interaction hypothesis which I believe that we should have it involving when discussing the potential of SL.
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