Virtual Worlds for Developing Intercultural Competence

CALL for widening participation: short papers from EUROCALL 2020

Virtual exchange projects have become an effective pedagogical method to support students’ development of intercultural language competence. High-immersion experiences in Virtual Reality (VR) may offer an environment which is conducive to developing such competence. This paper reports on a pilot study carried out with two groups of university students (N=30) in the Netherlands and Germany. The students, involved in a virtual exchange using VR headsets, completed three tasks collaboratively. The aim of the study was to investigate participants’ perception regarding (1) their collaboration with foreign peers within the VR setting and (2) the perceived usefulness of the tool. The researchers employed questionnaires and conducted interviews and focus groups. The audio recording transcripts from the VR encounters and students’ reflective journals provide further data to triangulate the results. This pilot study provides first results with regard to virtual exchanges carried out in high-i...

The use of Virtual Realities (VR) for teaching and training is well documented, but was - until recently - restricted to specialized institutions that could profide the technology and the specialists to create and operate a VR. With the advent of VRs open to the public at low cost the use of VRs for educational purposes has become an option for average schools and educators. The papers focuses on Second Life and ts use for Intercultural Education.

Topics in technology enhanced language learning, 2022

Before you read, reflect on the following questions: 1. What does the concept of "cultural competence" mean to you? 2. How do you define "Intercultural Communicative Competence"? 3. How much do you know about the concept of "Virtual Reality"? 4. Do you think that three-dimensional simulations could be utilized to develop ICC? If so, how? 5. Do you think that language teachers could encounter difficulties when they try to integrate virtual reality technologies into culture teaching in Türkiye?

CALL and professionalisation: short papers from EUROCALL 2021, 2021

Social Virtual Reality (VR) applications enable real-time interpersonal conversation and allow users to perform activities together. They have the potential of changing the ways learners practise speaking a foreign language. Following a previous study (Jauregi Ondarra, Gruber, & Canto, 2020), we designed the present study to explore how presence, immersion, and interactivity affect overall social experience. Students from Germany and the Netherlands engaged in Highimmersion VR (HiVR) virtual exchange sessions, using Spanish as a lingua franca at A2 level. International dyads carried out four interaction tasks in AltspaceVR, using head-mounted devices. To examine students' HiVR virtual exchange experiences, different sources of data were gathered: questionnaires, reflection diaries, recordings, and focus group interviews. The preliminary results, based on the surveys and reflection journals, show that students liked to use a social VR app to communicate in the target language with peers from other countries, as they felt completely immersed and co-present in the social interactive VR space. This might enhance engagement and lower anxiety levels.

Multi-user virtual environments for the classroom: practical approaches to teaching in virtual worlds, 2011

This project is a proposal for a case study that aims to describe and understand communicative and pedagogical processes involved in Second Life® (SL™) in a context of second language learning, by modelling in-world lessons of Portuguese as a second language for ERASMUS students arriving in Portugal. The purpose is to provide examples of situated e-learning driven activities and perceive how an immersive context stimulates learning by involving students in a virtual reality situation, where real life language context situations are provoked and where ‘not possible in real life’ learning routines happen. This will allow experiencing the advantages of this platform compared to physical life teaching and learning contexts, through the inherent characteristics of this medium, such as the synchronous and simultaneous use of voice and text.

World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, 2017

This teaching brief describes a novel form of acquiring intercultural competencies and foreign language skills in the classroom through the use of virtual environments. Two universities in two different cultural settings (Germany and Peru) coordinated the lecture times of their classes on cross-cultural competencies in such a way that after a few theoretical introduction sessions, classes were jointly taught through the use of videoconferences. Empirical evidence showed that the main achievements of the videoconferences were a better understanding of the other culture (including stereotypes) and awareness of differences in communication patterns, differences between low context and high context, and different value orientations in regards to monochromic and polychronic use of time. In contrast, the main challenges were technological and administrative in nature.

Arab World English Journal, 2023

The current study provides a broad overview of intercultural interaction in virtual reality (VR) settings made feasible by technology innovations, cultural components, and the usage of literary texts. The extensive usage of technology and social media by Generation Z molds their individuality and creates a new cultural realm. This study intends to analyze intercultural communication and language use in virtual spaces. It examines how the literary-based-cyberculture influences, especially Generation Z. Additionally, the study delineates social media and literary texts usage to develop intercultural communication and how the students' engagement in VR or digital space shapes their perceptions, attitudes, behavior, identities, and culture. A qualitative descriptive technique as a methodological instrument is used to collect information to compare it to other approaches and conceptualize it from the standpoints of different EFL learners. The pedagogical potential of using literary texts in the digital world offers to develop intercultural discourse, foreign language acquisition, and instruction in the context of technology-integrated educational practices in foreign language education. Finally, the study suggests educational institutions and think tanks adopt an innovative and constructive view to improve global acceptance, tolerance, and communication.

2025

This study investigates the effectiveness of virtual simulations in developing intercultural competence (IC) among pre-service teachers in Israel. In the context of cultural diversity and historical conflict, 283 Arab and Jewish students participated in a course utilizing either a 3D virtual world (VW) or video conferencing via Zoom. The mixed-methods research combined quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews. Quantitative results showed a modest but significant increase in intercultural competence for both groups, with no significant difference between VW and Zoom platforms. Qualitative findings revealed that while VW participants faced more technical challenges, they also reported more opportunities for empathy development and cross-cultural understanding. Both groups valued the exposure to different cultures and expressed a desire for face-to-face encounters. This study highlights the potential of virtual simulations in fostering IC, emphasizing the importance of collaborative problem-solving and intercultural interaction, regardless of the specific digital platform used. These findings contribute to the growing body of research on technology-mediated intercultural education and offer insights for designing effective virtual learning environments in multicultural contexts.

International Journal of Social and Organizational Dynamics in IT, 2012

This paper examines the results of student reflections of their interactions in Second Life (SL) which were prompted by required class related activities. The research methodology used was qualitative meta-analysis based on a grounded theory approach. A theoretical framework based in a constructivist epistemology was used to examine cultural and pedagogical implications of introducing students to a virtual environment as part of a classroom experience. Data was gathered from two different populations, one consisting of undergraduate students utilizing SL as a pedagogical tool for learning visual literacy elements in an introductory photo class, the other consisting of graduate students in a Learning Technology course exploring SL to understand its potential for teaching and training. Examination of student reflections revealed remarkably similar results between groups with respect to their immersion into the SL environment and related culture. Analysis of the student reflections pro...

portal.idc.ac.il

The demonstration will take place in the context of “The ShanghAI Lectures” 1, a global mixed-reality educational experiment that has three main goals:(1) Building a sustainable, global community and knowledge source in “Embodied Intelligence”, a topic ...