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Virtual reality in English lessons: Students from the University of Kassel lead VR project day at Anne Frank School
In the past summer semester 2023, student teachers at the University of Kassel learned how to create authentic multilingual learning environments in virtual realities as part of the cooperative seminars "Virtual Reality: A Multilingual Approach" led by Prof. Dr. Claudia Finkbeiner, Institute of English/American Studies, Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Research and Intercultural Communication, and "Virtual Reality in French and Spanish Teaching" led by Prof. Dr. Claudia Schlaak, Institute of Romance Studies, Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Research: Didactics of French and Spanish. Dr. Claudia Schlaak, Institute of Romance Studies, Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Research: Didactics of French and Spanish, learned how they can implement authentic multilingual learning environments in virtual realities in a school context. To this end, each student learning group was given a pair of Meta Quest 2 glasses to immerse them in various virtual learning environments. The aim was to be able to use virtual reality effectively in foreign language lessons. Subsequently, various lesson designs were and are being tested and evaluated in practice at cooperating schools of the University of Kassel.
Last Wednesday, the time had come again to put the developed teaching ideas into practice. At 5:30 a.m., the two students Max Herzing and Adrian Habenicht set off for Eschwege with research assistant Wiebke Sophie Ost. The car was fully loaded with 15 VR glasses, accompanying technology and teaching materials. Camera and audio devices were provided by the media lending service of the Teaching Service Center to document the students' impressions and learning experiences. Despite the early hour, the team from Kassel was warmly welcomed by English teacher Melanie Salewski at the Anne Frank School and they immediately set about preparing and setting up the technology.
For most of the pupils, this project day was their first encounter with virtual reality and their enthusiasm was overwhelming. After an intensive introduction to the VR goggles, the 31 students were able to travel to the most beautiful places in the American Southwest using the VR application BRINK Traveler.
The aim of the lesson was to plan road trips in America's Southwest. In the VR application BRINK Traveler, the students got to know the various national parks in California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. In virtual reality, the divided learning groups were able to hike through the various nature parks and interact with the virtual environment in a variety of ways. This allowed them to gain realistic impressions of the places, but also to gather specific information about the regions. Finally, the students presented the road trips they had created in a plenary session.
The team from the University of Kassel received a lot of positive feedback from all participants on site. The testing of the lesson plans provided important insights for the use of VR in foreign language teaching.
*The research project "Virtual Reality and Multilingualism" is one of 16 sub-projects in the third-party funded project "University of Kassel digital: Redesigning university teaching", which has been funded by the Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching since 2021. The project is led by Prof. Dr. Claudia Finkbeiner and Prof. Dr. Claudia Schlaak with the scientific assistance of Wiebke Sophie Ost.
You can find more information about the project at
https://lehrportal.uni-kassel.de/course/view.php?id=74
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Claudia Finkbeiner and Wiebke Sophie Ost
"Virtual reality and multilingualism"
Author: Adrian Habenicht