Week 12 - Virtual Reality in Language Learning & Teaching

 Our lesson started with technical issues 😀 but we got the party going almost immediately. We went on with discussing whether some of us know or tried VR, Mr. Karacan's previous project about VR, and obtained more information about what VR is. Then we watched an informative video (link down below) about virtual reality. The first thing mentioned in the video was that it was not only for gaming. It has many more features and some of them the VR offers to its users are;

- Watching movies & TV shows

- Learning to play an instrument

- Touring around the world

- Meditation

- Facing fears (heights, darkness, bugs...)

- Additive manufacturing

- Attending live concerts or sports shows

- Education

- Shopping

- Hanging out with friends from different places...

After the video, we discussed the areas in which VR can be used; education, entertainment, traveling, gaming, shopping, military, meditating, training, finance, architecture, real estate, etc.

Our next focus was on a website called ImmerseMe. The website has many languages to study and numerous activities/topics to check. The activities are divided into four groups; pronunciation, typing, spelling, and translation. This is where VR comes up. In a typing activity, we are in a reality where we talk to a friend about our hobbies [Picture 1]. Though, ImmerseMe has a negative side due to the fact that the scenarios are too unrealistic/fictional.

Another website/application for VR is Mondly VR [Picture 2]. This app is almost similar to ImmerseMe but rather than videos of real people, it provides animation videos. Mondly VR also has more context than the previous website but I found it more unrealistic than ImmerseMe. 

A different example is Virtual Speech [Picture 3]. The purpose of the website/application is to help deal with stage fright/anxiety. The app involves venues full of people and lets the user choose the place and number of people. The website has an advanced system that rates the speech, gives feedback about overly-used words, and tells the user to be more active or keep eye contact. 

Close to the end, we mentioned VR applications that can be used in language teaching classes; VREDDO, Teachlive, or Mursion. 

I heard about Virtual Reality but never had thought that It would be such an advanced element! Thanks to Mr. Karacan and Mrs. Şahin, I am now well-informed about it and planning on using it in my classes!

💬💬💬

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycV7iFG_l-U

[Picture 1]


[Picture 2]

[Picture 3]

[Picture 4]

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