Designing interaction tasks in Second Life for Chinese as a foreign language learners: A preliminary exploration

Abstract

The aims of this research were to develop guidelines for designing interaction tasks for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) and to investigate the attitudes of CFL learners toward a full CFL class in Second Life (SL). Three research questions were addressed in this research: (1) what are the attitudes of CFL learners toward the language learning tasks in SL? (2) what kinds of social interactions emerge from learning activities in a CFL class in SL? (3) how do those activities benefit CFL learners in the learning of Chinese in SL? Two studies were conducted to tackle these questions. The cognition, usage, and expansion (CUE) model was proposed based on the findings obtained from study 1 and then implemented and evaluated in study 2. The findings of study 2 indicated that the activities run in the CUE model were effective at motivating CFL beginners and improving their oral communication and social interactions. Based on the video data analysis, three criteria were proposed for designing learning activities. Suggestions are also made for future research on CFL teaching/learning in SL.