Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Reflection on the use of Second Life for special purpose

1 Second Life can improve analyzing, thinking abilities as well as independent study ability of students. SL uses an environment that imitates the real life to take the students to an ideal place of “thinking in English”. SL is an online RPG game, in this sense, it is role-centered. The language context and direct experience can relax the students and help them achieve a state of the best association, cogitation, and action. In addition, students are liable to have a desire to find out more and more about the cyber world, online communication, and different communities in the game even after class. Therefore, the significance of SL lies in the point that it enables students to become a person who have the independent study ability and can go on studying even after they have left the game.

2 SL Inspires an understanding of real life. SL is like a mirror which tells students something more than superficial. There are too many things we can experience in our life, but we don't sum them up in time. Then they disappear and leave us nothing. Through experiencing the game, student can understand exactly the essence of living and they may even grasp some rare emotions which may have an important influence on them (e.g. curiosity, anger, love and trust in the cyber environment).

Reflection on “Practical considerations for multimedia courseware development”


After reading Liou’s paper, I can’t agree more on the claim that multimedia resources “Exposes the learner to the culture of the language”.

Firstly, the multimedia resources used in classroom makes students realize that language and culture are inseparable. Language is not only a set of sign system, but also the main expression of culture. However, in teaching practice, the relation between language and culture has not been given enough value. Multimedia courseware is a way to arouse students' interest in culture. At the same time, it provides an approach for students to interpret culture. At the very beginning, students can learn cultural knowledge only from their teacher's introduction and explanation. Gradually, students can consciously notice the existence of culture in multimedia resources by themselves. What's more, they can react to the culture and draw it from the resources. This is a great progress for them. In this way, they have a better understanding of English language.

Secondly, when students are exposed to the culture of the language, they adapt themselves to an English environment. English majors may have a good command of English, however, they may feel puzzled when they have a face-to-face conversation with foreigner. That is because they may be quite familiar with the accent of their teachers and they keep in touch with only a couple of foreign teachers. But they are not confident in others' accents, especially when they meet foreigners. Having the multimedia course, students may get a lot of opportunities to adapt to various kinds of accents. What's more, this kind of touch is from a machine. That is to say, they are willing to immerge into a foreign environment without any anxiety. When they finish the course and return to the real life, they may think of some topics related to the course and speak out the language more spontaneously.