I’m prepared to overlook the typos! Yes, that lesson would work exactly as you describe it, with the exception of displaying the write-ups at the end, which would involve a tad of electrickery to make it happen. Sounds like a decent DOGME 3D class to me…

Rob

I imagine an English language learning lesson in SL as follows. Could someone who’s well versed in the SL environment tell me if this is do-able, please? My imaginary lesson assume the learners (and I ) know how to create an avatar, sit, and communicate via text and voice chat.

Learners, seated at computers in different geographic locations around the globe, are seated in Dennis’ villa with me. somebody makes a comment, asks a question, or whatever it takes to get the conversation started. The conversation drives the lesson. If we have a more seasoned SL user with us, s/he can guide us through teleporting to other locations as this becomes interesting or useful to us as a complement to our conversation. At the end of it all, say 30-60 minutes, we each write up a summary of the lesson (either as script, if that’s possible, or in a word processing program) and then post these on a board in the villa (I think Dennis has a board like this in his villa though it’s for media, I believe). We read each other accounts of the lesson and compare and make suggestions as necessary.

Would that work? It must seem very elementary to Howard V. and others SL pros.

Rob

BTW I’m like Gavin I see merits in both. Isn’t that the point? Take the best and leave the rest.

Why do so many EFL ‘experts’ seek proof that ICT ‘enhances’ learning? Do we require this proof of all our teaching aids? Pens? OHPs? I learned to speak Japanese with a old textbook and a dictionary. The learners are more important than the tools. It just helps to keep learners engaged if they recognise those tools and can use them too.

Surely we don’t need proof that students learn more or better or faster using ICT, simply that they learn. If people use web2.0 to communicate then it MUST be part of the language classroom too.

I imagine Web2.0 is the main channel of communicating in English as a lingua franca. Anyone how doubts ICT has a central role in language teaching has their head in the sand.

I suspect web2.0 communication even necessitates a redefinition of the concept of communicative competence that underpins most contemporary EFL pedagogy.

However, we must remember ICT in language learning is only relevant for those on this side of the technology divide. That said, remember, there is nothing intrinsically better about using ICT so it’s not as if people on the other side of the technology divide are not going to learn – I’m sure Marco Polo managed to learn a bit of Chinese without SecondLife!

Tony (cuppa_coffee)

[ the above posting is not (really) about DOGME, or (at all) about SL... ]

Thanks for commenting. In fact it’s not DOGME that attracts so much of my attention, but comments which have been made in and around conversations connected to DOGME (both in the Second Life chat the other night and in the DOGME Yahoo Group) which have cast rather sweeping aspersions on those using technology to teach (deluded, lack of research, crap personal experiences, one-off blog posts, etc.)

In the interests of balance I feel that someone needs to highlight some of those injustices and also put another valid and sane light on teaching and learning which escapes from the dogmatic.

This is not about SL, as it happens. This is about technologies – in teaching, in training and in life today – in all our lives, both personal and professional.

In fact I’m not hung up on SL at all, I’m hung up on everyone being able to pursue their own particular direction in teaching or training without being subject to sweeping statements as to the purported non-validity of those approaches.

So no, sorry, I’m not going to get drawn in to a discussion on the merits of SL for language education, about which I spoke way too much over the course of the SLanguages conference over the weekend. Those interested in my personal opinions could have heard them there. Besides, I don’t teach languages in SL – I teacher train.

More specifically, I mostly teach teachers how to get the most out of Second Life, and that’s a bit too embedded an idea for greater discussion. You might try talking to some of the people I’ve trained.

I also use it for the social side of other online courses, but have never used it to teach English. You’d be better off talking to people who do. I’d start by talking to Howard Vickers and his Parisian student who (though everyone has conveniently forgotten him in recent discussions) made a pretty plausible case for his language learning in SL.

And whether you (not you personally) approved of the methodologies or content that he described, there was no denying that it had been both enjoyable and effective for him. Which is about as good as it gets, I reckon…

All good fun, well done – reminds me a bit of the Martin Luther’s 95 thesis!

Karenne