Virtual Reality and Multilingualism

Virtual Reality and Multilingualism is an interdisciplinary course concept for web-based foreign language didactics (English, French, Spanish) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Claudia Finkbeiner and Prof. Dr. Claudia Schlaak. The cooperative research project "Virtual Reality and Multilingualism" at the University of Kassel aims to prepare future teachers for effective, digital work in everyday school life and ties in with the multilingual and multicultural reality of learners' lives. The project aims to promote didactic,  multilingual, intercultural and digital skills, in particular for the development and analysis of 360-degree and VR learning environments. As in DigCompEdu, these skills also play an important role in the professionalization model "LMR-Plus" (Finkbeiner, 2004).

A pre-post design (Finkbeiner, Schlaak & Ost, published) collects qualitative and quantitative data in order to measure and evaluate the impact of the project. Initial analyses show a significant increase in digital skills. It is clear that learning progression has taken place at various levels. Student teachers who acquire these skills as part of their training can act as multipliers and mediators in their future careers. 

Funding: Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching

In the winter semester 2021/22, the development, implementation and evaluation of an interdisciplinary course concept in the field of 360-degree learning environments and multilingualism (English, French and other foreign languages) was piloted. The aim was to enable future teachers to autonomously construct, implement and evaluate multilingual, virtual spaces for the most authentic teaching/learning situations possible. In the course of the course, the students dealt with the concepts of  augmentedreality, mixed reality and virtual reality , got to know the concept of visual literacy and, based on their newly acquired knowledge, created virtual teaching and learning spaces using suitable tools (in the seminar context: Lapentor) whose  design takes into account the embedding of specific, contextually situated and culturally bound situations as well as the use of multilingual means of communication.

The project will also create new, inclusive access to facilities and institutions in times of crisis and evaluate the opportunities and limitations of multilingual and multicultural embedded competence experiences in virtual spaces.

Due to the impact of the pandemic, the research project went fully digital in 2021. In the summer semester of 2023, face-to-face courses were able to take place again and in this  semester, the use and evaluation of the language learning application with the help of VR glasses was specifically tested in the training of prospective foreign language teachers. Based on the seminar approach of the winter semester 2021/2022, a course was developed that was both interdisciplinary and multilingual. This course was organized by the departments of English/American Studies and Romance Studies and was aimed at students studying to become teachers of English, French and Spanish.

15 Meta Quest 2 VR headsets were used in the seminar. The integration of the VR headsets into the seminar made it possible to add the VR dimension to traditional teaching methods. This opened up the opportunity to integrate the potential benefits of virtual reality into the process of language teaching and learning. Following a criteria-based analysis, the following language learning applications were used and evaluated in the seminar:

• BRINK Traveler

• Mondly - learning languages in VR
• National Geographic VR
• Noun Town
• Language Lab