As a former teacher of a second language I am always interested in new techniques. Now this sounds pretty amazing and I can see how it could be so effective and how much kids would love it. I found it interesting that one of the women said it helped her to explain what she wanted to say in another way. I was always saying to my students to explain things in a different way if you don't have the words you need. Not all students were good at this but I can see VR helping more students to be successful using this technique.
Oakville’s Manar Mustafa, a computer engineer who fled war in Syria and came here in 2016, said she attended a regular English program at a newcomer settlement service agency but nothing can compare to VR learning.
“This is a perfect experience. I never used VR but everything feels so real in the VR world. I have not visited the Niagara Falls but now I have. It was right in front of me in the classroom and I didn’t even get wet,” the 36-year-old mother of four said with a chuckle.
“Initially, I felt dizzy (with motion sickness), but now I really love it. I feel very comfortable with it.”
Her classmate, Afghan journalist Abdul Mujib Ebrahimi, who only arrived in Canada last November, said he hopes to quickly translate what he has learned from the virtual world to the real world.
“The VR experience pushes you in a real situation. You are a character and you use your imagination to communicate with others. If I don’t know a word or how to say something, I just explain it in a different way for people to understand me,” said the 27-year-old from Badakhshan.
“I’m still trying to learn English and work with English, but I am more confident when I talk to real people.”
Alexander cautions that it’s too early to determine the effectiveness of VR in language learning.
“We have to be careful of the novelty effect of VR. Our students are enjoying the experience maybe because they’re trying VR for the first time and they can tell their friends and family about it,” he explained.
The VR class this summer is part of a series of projects that also include participants in traditional classrooms and artificial-intelligence-assisted learning in front of a computer. The AI session will be launched in winter.
