Second Life as a Virtual Playground for Language Education

Book excerpt: This insightful book offers language teachers and teachers in training the opportunity to delve into 3D virtual worlds and see the benefits they provide for effective language teaching. Based on a decade of experience teaching and researching in Second Life (SL), Chen demystifies the dos and don’ts of SL teaching and research, whilst vividly walking readers through each step of the journey. Written in an accessible, jargon-free, and personalised tone, the book is divided into three parts. Part I builds the foundation in SL research, task-based language teaching (TBLT), and understanding fundamental skills for SL teaching. Part II showcases the author’s SL teaching blog that generously unveils their task-based, SL-enabled lessons, participant observations, critical reflections, and lessons learned from each SL session. Part III is complete with the highlights of the author’s SL research and hands-on resources and tips for readers. Each chapter also features a "Checkpoint" section to gauge reader understanding of chapter content, followed by a "Your Task" section to promote learning by doing in SL. Teachers and curriculum designers will find the well-detailed and guided lesson planning useful when starting their first SL class. Graduate students and novice researchers will also find the systematically recorded data collection helpful for their SL research.