TICE

Where are Virtual Educational Environments Going?

Gabriela E. Cortés Sánchez *
UAM - Azcapotzalco

Introduction

The educational experience during the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus revealed that now, more than ever, it is time to break away from traditional teaching and learning models and start incorporating modern technologies and mixed experiences into our pedagogical reality. In this sense, digital education is no longer just an option but a global strategy, a central topic, and an indispensable instrument for learning. It is unquestionable that the digital dimension has permeated society in one way or another, and technology has reshaped the way we do things in our everyday lives. Therefore, preparing the citizens of the future means enabling them to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in a society immersed in the digital age using virtual reality.

According to Lanier (2017) Virtual Reality stands at the intersection of science, philosophy, and technology, pushing boundaries like no other invention before it.  It has the power to weave intricate tapestries of illusion, transporting us to fantastical alien realms or even into entirely different bodies.  Yet, paradoxically, VR also offers the most profound tool yet for understanding what it means to be human, delving deep into our very cognition and perception.

The use of virtual environments seems to be a viable initiative for online education. However, if there is a genuine intention to achieve a qualitative improvement in the learning processes, educational institutions offering distance courses must establish online learning environments that promote interaction among users, prioritize knowledge transmission, facilitate the development of support tools, and ensure pedagogical follow-up of students. These environments are known as Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) or Learning Management Systems (LMS), by their English initials. They are executed through free or paid software programs and technologies that enable the exchange of information and resources. These digital education environments contain all the elements that serve as course supplements and allow the dispensing of online teaching through a range of resources and functions, ranging from content publication and dissemination, synchronous and asynchronous communication media, collaborative work development, the design of assessment tools, to the tracking of students' activities and progress.

Some of the spaces where this digital educational practice takes place, whether synchronously or asynchronously, include forums, messaging services, chats, video conferences, audio conferences, online learning platforms, virtual reality, and the metaverse, among others. In any form, it's unlikely that a virtual environment could fully replace human interaction or provide the social and emotional support that students need. For this reason, a well-conceived virtual learning environment will always have a personal touch, such as a facilitator in real-time sessions, live chats among peers, and virtual classrooms, among others.

The purpose of this study is to critically reflect on the future and evolution of virtual learning environments and how these environments could contribute to facilitating access and expanding and improving distance education. This work has decided to focus on the teaching and learning of foreign languages, particularly from an immersion approach. The fundamental concepts expressed find their epistemological space in the considerations put forth by Jaron Lanier and other specialists in alternative virtual worlds oriented towards the teaching and learning of foreign languages, including distance education, virtual environments, virtual reality, augmented reality, and the metaverse, among others.

Development

Where are virtual learning environments heading? What could be the next step?

Education and digital environments are two fields increasingly associated, at least for the purpose of generating debate. Among those fiercely in favor and those no less motivated against, it is not evident to discern the real challenges and problems posed by this topic. While digitalization will bring significant opportunities and benefits to the teaching of foreign languages and education in general, one cannot deny the enormous challenges that education will have to face, starting with the significant digital divide that exists in the world.

In any case, and without a doubt, virtual learning environments are already a reality, and their conceptualization is the product of an evolutionary process (Riande, 2020). It is up to us to specify how our commitment within this always active virtual universe would boost education while not neglecting the socially interactive qualities that support human learning.

Teaching and learning foreign languages in virtual learning environments

Language immersion

Language immersion is one of the main pedagogical approaches that, through direct communication with native speakers, facilitates the learning of a foreign language. The fundamental purpose of immersion is to try to recreate the conditions for natural language acquisition (Gruca, 2003 in Qotb 2015). In other words, the purpose of language immersion lies in exposing the student to the target language in authentic communication situations. This approach offers various modes of application, such as language or cultural stays. However, mobility programs are affected by some inconveniences, with the significant investment of time and money being the most prominent, leaving many students unable to participate.

In this regard, various possibilities of ICTs, primarily the Internet, have managed to promote virtual mobility through social networks, blogs, video conferencing platforms, video games, virtual discussion forums, etc. Regardless of distance, virtual learning environments facilitate interaction between native speakers and students, making it accessible, efficient, cost-effective, and in real communication situations. Concerning foreign languages, virtual technologies encourage the development of teaching and learning situations through action. In an immersion approach mediated by technology, the student takes an active role in structuring their knowledge through observation, experimentation, and action, all inherent qualities of constructivist learning. In the future, the range of possibilities will grow exponentially.

Teaching foreign languages: toward virtual reality and augmented reality

In the 2019 Horizon Report for Higher Education (EDUCAUSE, 2019), which describes the key trends and technologies shaping the future of teaching and learning, the innovative nature and great didactic potential of virtual reality and augmented reality are highlighted. Virtual reality will undoubtedly change the face of education. Due to its playful and engaging nature, virtual reality will provide multiple exciting learning opportunities. Through sensory-motor activities and the sensation of being present, students will be able to witness historical events, observe natural phenomena, enjoy cultural activities, explore museums, travel to distant places, and participate in other events with a high degree of fidelity to the real world.

In the teaching of foreign languages, educators can propose linguistic and intercultural activities and engage students in various simulations of everyday events, such as job interviews or buying and selling situations in a department store. In other words, in linguistic competence, virtual reality will undoubtedly have a significant impact on lexical, phonetic, intercultural, and morphological aspects, among others. However, one of the main contributions of virtual reality in teaching and learning foreign languages is its positive effect on motivation and engagement in schoolwork.

In any case, the destiny of virtual reality will be determined by how people use it. "Like all technologies, virtual reality can bring out the best and worst of humanity" (Lainer, n.d. in Bastien, 2018).

The metaverse in foreign language teaching and learning

The metaverse is a compilation of virtual reality technologies, 3rd-dimensional virtual worlds, and augmented reality tools that are being developed by different companies and organizations (Peachey, 2022). An antecedent of the metaverse could be found in the virtual reality platform Second Life, as an early example; However, beyond proposing a virtual reality for its users, the metaverse proposes a kind of route that encompasses the real and virtual worlds.

In the future, the most unusual adventures in action movies could become a reality for students around the world. Regarding teaching, studies on the metaverse highlight its potential for interface with the educational system and its capacity for gamification of learning activities.

Now, while virtual reality is a well-defined technology that can already be experienced, the metaverse is still a work in progress, fraught with speculation and will take time to fully implement. The metaverse will surely consider virtual reality as a way of access and interaction; but it could also use augmented reality and even be accessible through other technologies.

In the past, foreign language teachers planned visits to museums or other tourist places in the city so that our students could interact with native speakers of the target language and, thus, be able to provide them with an immersive experience. Currently, for various reasons of time, economic, health and, above all, insecurity, this is no longer really possible. In the metaverse, this activity and many others could take place. A student who consults an online museum, instead of attending a physical museum, in the metaverse could create an avatar and walk to a virtual museum in 3rd dimension and interact with employees, with guides, with tourists and with other students.

Video games and foreign language learning

Students like to learn in a fun way and also love the use of technology. Two unquestionable truths of the modern era. What better way to harmonize them than by gamifying foreign language learning? In this sense, video games can be fun, but they are designed to obtain serious results.

The effectiveness of the video game in learning a foreign language lies in the fact that the student's attention will be focused on the game and on communication with the other players and will downplay the errors that could be made when speaking and will also stop Put aside your shyness to interact with other people in a language that you probably do not know well.

Another of the strengths of video games lies in the correlation they create between listening comprehension skills and written comprehension skills. By listening to and reading countless dialogues, the student will learn grammatical rules, new vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, idioms, etc., while immersed in the action of a virtual world. In the intercultural dimension, the value of video games will be based on negotiations to overcome cultural differences and resolve conflicts of otherness; The above will result in establishing solid social relationships.

However, we will have to pay attention when choosing the video game and favor those that lend themselves to starting conversations, that require the solution of riddles or challenges through the target language, that encourage live interaction with other players, that include role-playing games, strategies, adventures and word games.

Teaching and learning foreign languages in digital education environments: An enormous field of study and a multiplicity of approaches

As has been seen, digital education includes a large number of objects of study: technological devices (equipment, services, resources), evolution of professional practices, interaction between different educational actors (institutions, educational community, society, industry, etc.); as well as various disciplinary, interdisciplinary and pluridisciplinary approaches: educational sciences, computer science, sociolinguistics, sociology and didactics, among others.

All of this entails enormous complexity and countless challenges of all kinds that require concrete actions. Firstly, the education/digital dimension binomial is complicated because its context is constantly evolving and its interactions are extremely rich.

According to 800 university professors surveyed by the Inter-American Development Bank, the main challenges for the integration of technologies in education are the lack of effective training, Internet access and financing; considering the lack of effective training as the greatest challenge to overcome (Ledesma de Castro, 2021).

In this sense, the positive effects of virtual learning environments will depend, in large part, on the ability of teachers to find realistic and practical ways to transition from traditional to new forms of teaching and on their experience in implementation. and integration of technological devices. This reflection leads to an individual but also a collective echo. For this reason, it will be necessary to establish teacher training programs that respond to the real need to integrate the processes of virtual learning environments into pedagogical scenarios.

On the other hand, the deployment of digital devices has been wrongly considered as a sufficient factor to guarantee the operational nature of education, and not as a prerequisite. The challenge would be, therefore, to conceive its use in the service of pedagogical practice. In other words, to manage online teaching, specific strategies must be implemented to conduct the teaching/learning process. For this, it will be necessary to carry out joint work between specialists in teaching and learning foreign languages, specialists in new technologies and specialists in virtual design.

Conclusions

Students of the 21st century have different priorities than students of past generations. In fact, each generation must evolve according to the socio-historical and technological context in which it will live. Teachers will also have to adapt to this constantly changing world and be interested in the integration of technologies into their teaching practice.

Virtual learning environments will be the ideal response to the essential flexibility that post-pandemic teaching requires. The curiosity, motivation and commitment that the digital dimension generates in students will soon become an important driver of foreign language learning.

The benefits that virtual learning environments provide are, without a doubt, the implementation of more playful, more concrete learning that is more in line with the students' concerns. Students feel more committed and autonomous when their work is valued. This effect creates a “virtuous” circle that encourages students to return with greater enthusiasm to foreign language courses.

Developing new teaching and learning modalities in time and space will require a large investment, but, above all, a process of adaptation by teachers, students and even their families.

Exploring the possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in personalized language tutoring and feedback mechanisms is a must.

The teaching and learning of foreign languages have transformed over time, closely following societal trends. As society evolves towards new spaces in the 3rd dimension, language training will undoubtedly move towards that model.

* Gabriela E. Cortés Sánchez: Es licenciada en Derecho por la UAM-A, Maestría en Lingüística Aplicada en la UNAM, First Certificate of Teaching English as a Foreing Language y Certificate of Proficiency of Teaching English as a Foreign Language por el Anglo Mexicano de Cultura A.C. Profesora investigadora de tiempo completo titular “C”. Fue coordinadora del CELEX de la UAM-A del 2001 al 2007. Es coautora de los libros English for Economists y Aprender a aprender. Ha dictado más de 80 ponencias a nivel nacional e internacional y publicado alrededor de 60 artículos de investigación en la disciplina de Lingüística Aplicada.