Living as an Avtar: EFL Learners’ Attitudes towards Utilizing Second Life Virtual Learning

Abstract

In the foreign language context, little research has been undertaken to explore university students’ attitudes towards virtual learning for language instruction. The purpose of this study was to investigate EFL learners’ attitudes toward utilizing the Second Life virtual world as an online instructional and language learning tool. To achieve the study purposes, a descriptive research design was used with a questionnaire to gather data, after ensuring its validity and reliability. Forty-one undergraduates who were enrolled in two CALL classes at a school of education participated in the study. Overall, the results suggest that the majority of EFL undergraduates have favorable attitudes toward using virtual games and that the use of Second Life served well as an online instructional tool for language learning. Based on the results of the current study, EFL instructors may be encouraged to integrate virtual world games to augment their students’ learning by providing them paths to engage in authentic communication with the target language users. Further, the integration of virtual learning is a promising alternative in times of pandemics when social distancing is an obligation. Such ends require that instructors plan some virtual world-based tasks of a goal-driven nature. Further research directions include implementing qualitative tools to explore how learners react to the nature of virtual world games, specifically in relation to the users’ ability to claim different identities.