Our original project, VR4LL 1.0, provided language teachers and learners with the opportunity to use VR technology in a classroom context. One student wearing a headset was given a task to complete in one of our engaging virtual worlds, with instructions being provided by his or her classmates. The success of this initial project can be measured by the large number of language schools that are using our VR materials, and by the fact that the project was shortlisted for the British Council’s prestigious ELTon’s award, in the category of Digital Innovation.
VR4LL 2.0 is a new project, also co-funded by Erasmus+, that has even more ambitious aims. In this new project we will develop two different types of learning environment. In the first type, students will be asked to perform tasks in a virtual learning environment such as a science lab, which may be familiar to some students, but certainly won’t be familiar to all of them. In the second type of environment, students will have to complete a task by navigating their way around a series of virtual escape rooms. In this case, nothing will be quite so familiar; neither the virtual environments themselves, nor the sort of activities students are required to undertake.
Both types of learning environment will allow multiple players, so students will be able to interact with their classmates both inside and outside the virtual worlds, as well as with a wide range of objects and avatars (or non-playable characters).The underlying aim of VR4LL 2.0 is to leverage recent advances in VR technology to provide students with even more stimulating opportunities to practice and improve their language skills.
