Connected Teacher Education (CoTeach)
→ This project has been completed.
AP5: Vollimmersive Lernumgebungen im Fremdsprachenunterricht
We combine intercultural learning with a virtual reality environment. This fully immersive medium allows us to create intercultural encounter situations that empower learners to become intercultural agents in the sense of action-oriented learning. A key focus here is on implicit changes in attitudes and behaviors, which can occur, for example, through the different representations of the avatar's embodiment (self-representation) or the agents within the virtual environment (social context). The added value of VR applications for intercultural learning manifests itself on three levels: cognitive, affective, and conative. Cognitively, it takes the form of a deeper understanding of intercultural orientation regarding one's own and other cultures. Affectively, it arises from intercultural encounters in VR worlds that foster openness and curiosity. Ideally, this results in positive changes in attitudes toward one's own and other cultures. And pragmatically, it manifests as the development of communicative competence, both subjectively experienced (through direct communication) and objectively measurable, in the form of dialogic speaking skills and interaction strategies.
Fully immersive learning environments promote intercultural learning processes because students not only view VR worlds, but can also interact within them and manipulate the environment independently. Intercultural learning sequences in these authentic virtual and application-oriented experiential spaces are thus based on increased interaction and construction performance on the part of students compared to traditional media in English language teaching.
This research project focuses on three levels of impact in the VR environment: virtual objects, context, and avatars.
Culturally charged virtual objects with which learners can interact in the virtual world can explicitly support them in coping with intercultural encounter situations. Implicitly, interaction with these objects can provide insight into how learners use cultural objects. The selection of these objects and the interpretation of object interaction based on implicit bias testing are central research concerns.
By selecting different avatars that correspond more or less to their ‘true selves’, students gain a multi-perspective view of virtual situational contexts in order to negotiate and experiment with images of themselves and others in a dialogical manner. Of central interest here is investigating the extent to which avatars affect the process of intercultural learning in foreign language teaching and the extent to which viewing the self and the foreign counterpart through different avatars can initiate a change of perspective.
Not only the representation of the self or the other through avatars, but also the representation of the situational context will be manipulated in further research projects with the help of VR. The influence of virtual travel to foreign places will also be examined in relation to intercultural learning. This level of impact is particularly promising, especially given the current restrictions on travel.
In a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected, not least due to digital technologies, it is essential to take this intercultural interconnectedness into account in the classroom. The focus on discrimination, with an emphasis on racism, stems from its high social relevance, which has recently received a great deal of attention due to the Black Lives Matter movement. In modern English lessons, learners must therefore:
- Acquire basic knowledge about manifestations of (everyday) racism in their own and other people's lives (identify and define racism).
- Develop a critical, sensitive awareness of racist attitudes in everyday life.
- Live out a respectful and open-minded perspective on their own and others' cultures in relation to
- sensitive language use with regard to possible unconscious racist elements in their own and others' languages.
- a commitment to treating people from different cultures and countries as equals, meeting them on equal terms, and always implementing this in their (foreign) language use.
Virtual reality offers learners the opportunity to experience intercultural encounters and become independent actors. Using various tools, learners can communicate and act, thereby questioning, relativizing, and even rethinking their own cultural standpoint. VR enables authentic intercultural contact situations for interactive linguistic interaction with “real” representatives of one's own and foreign cultures
Class observation
- Comparison groups: Two classes work on a lesson topic (African-American experience/racism, etc.) with and without VR application.
- The topic of racism is addressed in one group within the VR world and in the other in a ‘traditional’ lesson as a role play, discussion, task (poster project, etc.).
Experiments
Empirical studies are conducted to compare different immersive interventions. The aim is to identify the potential and limitations of immersive teaching and learning scenarios in VR and compare them with conventional methods.
Surveys (interviews & questionnaires in pre- and post-phases)
- Goal: Students verbalize cultural experiences.
- Refine the method to examine intercultural learning processes on a cognitive, affective, and conative level.
- Avoid courtesy statements and (socially) desirable answers.
- Keywords: openness, curiosity, intercultural orientation knowledge, critical cultural awareness, self-efficacy in the target language.
Portfolio (accompanying lessons)
- Objective: Students document (intercultural) learning processes over a longer period of time.
- Document analysis with surveys should provide information about the added value of VR applications in the context of the entire teaching unit.
Textbook analysis
- Define the potential for VR applications in a teaching context.
- Close ‘gaps’ in the FSU media landscape: explore the possibilities and limitations of VR with regard to intercultural learning and other topics.
The social VR platform ViLearn is used to enable authentic, intercultural contact situations for interactive language use. This project allows teachers and learners to interact live with avatars in hybrid teaching and learning scenarios. The Oculus Rift S is used in work packages 5 and 8 of the CoTeach project. These VR glasses are not only one of the best-selling glasses worldwide, but also impress with their uncomplicated design. They have an integrated tracking system and require little space. This makes them ideal for teaching concepts and our target group. Immersion is important for achieving our goals and is defined by technology. Teachers and learners should not be prevented from immersing themselves in the virtual world by heavy HMDs, unergonomic controllers, or on-ear headphones. Compared to other HMDs, the Oculus Rift S is a lightweight alternative and comes with ergonomic controllers.
The aim of this research project is to create a VR world in which students can expand their intercultural competence in the context of encounters with objects and avatars in order to learn what discrimination/racism is and how to deal with it. Learners are guided through the VR world using an activity kit, so that teachers can use it without extensive preparation or supervision and can reflect on it with the learners after completing the tasks in the VR world. However, there is also potential in teacher training, because if teachers are familiarized with VR technology during their university education, the inhibition threshold to use it in the classroom can be lowered. The project is therefore also suitable for linking teacher training and later professional practice, so that this project should be realized in close cooperation with AP8.
Eisenmann, M. & Steinbock, J. (2024). Global Citizenship in Social Virtual Reality for Future English Teachers. 10th International Conference n Higher Education Advances (HEAd'24) (pp.83-90). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (Awarded as one of the five best papers) read here
Eisenmann, M. & Steinbock, J. (2024). Diversity in the Foreign Language Classroom: A Social Virtual Reality Project. In L. Mañoso-Pacheco, J. Estrada Chichón, & R. Sánchez-Cabrero (Eds.), Inclusive Education in Bilingual and Plurilingual Programs (pp. 265-280). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-0563-8.ch014
Eisenmann, M., Grafe, S., Trefzger, T., Siller, H., Dreßler, J., Hennecke, M., Heurich, T., Nord, I., Pohlmann-Rother, S., Ratz, C., Richter, T., (2023). DigiLLabs@JMU an der Professional School of Education der Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg". in Meier, M., Greefrath, G., Hammann, M., Wodzinski, R., Ziepprecht, K. (Eds). Lehr-Lern-Labore und Digitalisierung, S. 155-160, Springer.
Eisenmann, M., Steinbock, J., Hein, R., Latoschik, M., Wienrich, C. (2023). Virtual Reality im modernen Englischunterricht und das Potanzial für Inter- und Transkulturelles Lernen. Eine Pilotstudie. MedienPädagogik Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung, 5, S. 191-213. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21240/mpaed/51/2023.01.18.X
Eisenmann, M., Steinbock, J., Hein, R., Latoschik, M., Wienrich, C. (2022). Virtual Reality im modernen Englischunterricht und das Potenzial für Inter- und Transkulturelles Lernen. MedienPädagogik Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung, 47, S. 246-266. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21240/mpaed/47/2022.04.12.X
Eisenmann, M., Hein, R., Latoschik, M., Wienrich, C. (2021). Development of the InteractionSuitcase in virtual reality to support inter- and transcultural learning processes in English as Foreign Language education. DELFI 2021. Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., S. 91-96.
Eisenmann, M., Hein, R., Latoschik, M., Wienrich, C. (2021). Inter- und Transkulturelles Lernen in Virtual Reality - Ein Seminarkonzept für die Lehrkräfteausbildung im Fach Englisch. Wettbewerbsband AVRiL 2021. Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., S. 34-39. DOI: 10.18420/avril2021_05
Eisenmann, M., Wienrich, C., Erich, M. E., Latoschik & Grafe, S. (2020). CoTeach - Connected Teacher Education. in Schwaiger, M. (Ed). Boosting Virtual Reality in Learning, E.N.T.E.R., n.p.
