Transcript Virtual learning Teaching and learning a minority language in virtual classrooms Hanna Outakoski, Sweden, Umeå university.

Virtual learning
Teaching and learning a minority language in virtual
classrooms
Hanna Outakoski, Sweden, Umeå university
The Study
This paper is partly based on a survey
done amongst the Sami language and
culture teachers in Northern
Scandinavia and Finland spring 2010,
and partly on a pilot course in North
Sami for new beginners (also from
the spring semester 2010)
 Some facts and numbers concerning
language courses in Sami languages
come from the official homepages of
the Sami departments in Finland
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Virtual learning and languages
– Background and motivation
The terms of teaching and learning
languages are changing as we are
given the opportunity to integrate elearning/online learning into higher
education
 Online courses, distance learning,
mixed and flexible teaching methods,
new student groups, ICT and its
advanced applications, autonomous
studies where time and space do not
limit the options
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New possibilities
Information and communication
technologies are a continuously
evolving field, that offers us new tools
for language teaching at a vast rate –
but one must keep in mind, that
these should be seen as just tools,
and not the reason why we teach
languages online
 Focus must lie in language teaching
at all times
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Indigenous minority languages
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Count as good candidates when we are
developing new online courses because:
Students are usually scattered over a large geographic
area
They often have other livelihoods than language studies,
but find it important to study the language of the
ancestors – building the identity
Many students also follow unusual working schedules
These students have the right to their language even
when the student groups are relatively small
Students are often used to new technologies, although not
everybody has the access to the best Internet connection
E-learning can empower people that might otherwise be
discriminated by the Sami themselves – virtual classrooms
can provide the protection that is needed for developing
and strengthening a minority identity, or give the
opportunity to non-Sami to learn the language
Where are we now?
– The survey
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Of the six universities or other higher education institutions that teach Sami
languages only one is at this time using virtual worlds in language education
– but most institutions are using some kind of a common online platform for
keeping in contact with the students and for storing documents
There are universities (e.g. Oulu university and Helsinki university) that do
not give any pure online courses in Sami – these were also the two
universities that did not answer to the survey that was only distributed
online
Two out of thirteen teachers are using more than one online tool on their
courses – seven out of thirteen teachers have never heard of the most
common online tools
Twelve teachers out of thirteen think that e-learning and online courses are
important and up-to-date topics in minority language teaching
All the teachers that answered the survey also think that it is very important
to reach to the students that otherwise might not be able to study at
university
Most teachers would like to know more, get education on the field and be
part of an international cooperation in the subject
All the teachers also feel that they don’t have the time that they would need
to become more skilled online teachers
Only half of the teachers answered that their departments had some sort of
long term plans for developing online education, half of the teachers did
either not know of such plans or knew that such plans were non-existent
Online teaching tools
Online Tools
Youtube
Voicethread
Camtasia
Tools
Not familiar with
Not a user - familiar with
Skype
Occasional user
User
Skilled user
Marratech
Adobe Connect
SL Second Life
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Persons
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Attitudes
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There was also a clear correlation between
attitudes towards e-learning and online language
courses, and the teachers own personal
experience of teaching in different virtual
environments
The more experience the teacher had the more
positive attitude she/he had
Those that had a lot of experience of online
learning also thought that languages could be
taught solely through internet – but that it would
require very good skills of the teacher and use of
several interactive learning tools
One person had very negative attitudes towards
teaching languages online – but also told that
she/he had no time for course redesign
Students
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I have interviewed North Sami students that have
studied or study the language this year
Students that have participated on virtual
classroom teaching or lessons in virtual worlds all
see virtual worlds as a valuable complement to
their usual language education – some students
also say that online courses are the only way for
them to acquire skills in North Sami (but that they
propably prefer meeting their classmates in RL)
Those students that have not participated on such
courses believed that E-learning and online
language courses equal with having a common
storage for course materials and perhaps a chat
possibility for student collaboration – for them the
idea of learning language in virtual worlds is
unfamiliar but they would very much like to try it
The pilot course
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The rest of this presentation concentrates
on examples of how virtual worlds can be
integrated into higher education and
language learning
The examples come from a course for
beginners in North Sami and from a
teachers course through a project called
Avalon learning
All examples are from Second Life where
no Sami environments yet exist but where
the language teacher can choose between
thousands of virtual environments (and
one can also choose environments based
on the language used on the “island”)
Second Life
Is a virtual 3D world – where the
users create all the content and
environments
 It is NOT a game world although
games and language tasks can be
arranged in this world
 It is build of thousands of Islands
(individual virtual environments)
 Joining and using SL is free
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Reading – all kinds of texts
Learning environments
Cultural environments language
History and language
Other minorities and their
languages – inspiration and contacts
Collaborative work - students
Literature – portraits
Student presentation: Billie Holliday,
afroamerican literature and history,
portrait, learning about the roots,
giving the student the possibility to
create and interpret
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q
7Wo4RAmJcU
 Prof. Bryan Carter at Central
Missouri State University
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Vocabulary and collaboration
The task
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Go to the Animal Island in Second Life.
Work in pairs. You have received a map
that shows six locations on the island. Visit
all six locations together with your partner.
At every location, list all the animals you
see (in English/North Sami/etc.). Return
then to our virtual classroom and present
the list to the other students/the teacher.
You may only use ENGLISH/NORTH SAMI/
etc when you communicate with your
partner.
The students get to train their collaborative
skills, they also learn new words and train
important communicative skills
Foreign languages and oral skills – authentic
meetings with other language learners
North Sami course
New beginners learn to speak the
language in virtual classroom and in
Second Life (there are no physical
meetings).
 The avatar or role figure in SL
“protects” the language learner and
this gets even shy persons to speak
 Second Life is always open – students
are free to meet other language
speakers and learners at any time the
choose to
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Benefits
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Easy and fast way to find authentic
language contacts
Never ending opportunities for
collaboration and co-work
Does not cost anything for the student
Can be used together with other virtual
environments (this is especially helpful
when some students have a slow internet
connection) such as Adobe Connect
The teacher can create all kinds of material
in forms of films, so called machinima, or
fotos taken in SL
The students can create almost anything
Challenges
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Time consuming in the beginning
The technology works for most of the time,
but one may also experience quite a lot of
frustration at times when the technology is
not working as it should
In online teaching the most important thing
is PLANNING – the teacher must have a
plan B ready in case that students are
experiencing problems
All online courses put a lot of responsibility
on the students – they must be able to
work autonomously
The students should be informed of the
adult content in virtual worlds
Conclusions
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Teaching languages in virtual worlds and
classrooms can be a great complement to all
language courses and can indeed raise the
standard of language education
Some language courses must be redesigned to
better meet the needs of the students (minority
languages such as North Sami)
It is possible to teach language purely in virtual
environments, but a lot of work must be put into
planning the course
Most people still want to see virtual worlds just as
a complement in language learning, but in the
future virtual worlds will have a more important
role in all higher education