Hello, folks! I am back already. I hope that you are doing well. Today, as you see in the title, here comes another entirely different and innovative field and topic to discuss. We are going to talk about Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and their effective integration into the field of ELT. To begin with, AR is defined as the superimposition of virtual components such as images and texts into real-world surroundings. On the other hand, VR is defined as the exhaustive experience that transports its users to a computer-generated environment through the use of a headset or goggles. At this point, I am going to mention the AR/VR-integrated teaching material designed for preparatory class students in the state high schools with my peer Ertuğrul İğdir. After mentioning our experiences throughout the creation of the project, I am going to state my opinions about the place of AR/VR technologies in language teaching. If you are ready, here we go!
First of all, there were two options to create our AR/VR-integrated teaching material and we chose the first option, which is "Exploring a City Abroad". Therefore, we chose to introduce and help the target students to explore important landmarks and a prominent museum along with a traditional food of New York City. Then, we chose the "Times Square" and the "Statue of Liberty" as landmarks, "The Metropolitan Museum of Art" as a museum, and "New York-style Cheesecake" as a traditional dessert. Yes, New York-style Cheesecake! You haven't heard it wrong. It even takes place in the iconic American sitcom Friends where Chandler Bing and Rachel Green tries to devour it. :)
Anyway, we firstly compiled expository texts for each landmark, museum, and food for students to get the gist of them. After that, we found proper pictures about them on Pinterest. We found 360-degree scenery videos for 2 landmarks and one 360-degree gallery exhibition tour video about the museum on YouTube as well as 3D object of the New York-style cheesecake on the website "envatoelements". Then, we prepared their QR codes on MEQR for students to scan and view each content. Lastly, we prepared a project at the end of the task about writing a postcard to the friend and telling about the explorations and experiences that the sender had in New York. Furthermore, Canva was very beneficial for us in designing the template appropriately and put these elements into the template and align them coherently for the project to be catchy. After these processes, we began preparing 4-5 experience-based and knowledge-based questions about the 360-video for landmarks, the museum and 3D object of the cheesecake. However, the questions should have been primarily about students' expected experiences after watching or viewing the content. Thus, we had difficulty in generating the convenient questions compatible with each content and our instructor expressed that some of the questions were a bit redundant and they should be to the point and about students' possible experiences in the draft feedback session. Moreover, the instructor said that our project should be improved in terms of its instructions, page layouts and some helpful prompts for students in the project part. After the feedback, we revised our questions and rewrote some of the on-target, and relevant questions. Finally, we redesigned our project in the end and converted it to writing an e-mail to a friend about your trip to New York and some recommendations to give by giving clear and concise instructions.
Secondly, let's reflect on AR/VR integration into ELT contexts. There are several aadvantages for AR/VR integration process. Those are as follows:
AR enhances spatial understanding and visualization skills.
AR applications can improve students' grammar and vocabulary by the integration of real-world environment and images or texts.
It fosters long-term memory storage for academic achievement.
It makes learning fun and active.
Students' attitudes can be evolved to be more positive after the application of it in an EFL context.
It enhances higher motivation.
VR promotes personalized learning, student creativity, problem-solving skills, teamwork, and language skills of the students.
VR can enhance immersive environment which may be normally inaccessible for some students such as Boston city exploration tour.
On the other hand, there may be potential challenges in integrating AR/VR into ELT contexts. These can be as follows:
Students may lack technological devices necessary for the AR/VR applications to use them effectively.
Students may be hindered by excessive AR/VR tool prices due to economic circumstances.
There could be steady problems in Internet connections because of the school's location.
Teachers' extensive knowledge may lack for their integration process into the classroom context.
Teachers or students may not improve favorable attitudes towards their integration into the EFL context.
The devices can be glitchy or inaccurate.
It may be the case that high-quality and curriculum-aligned content could not be improved comprehensively aligned with VR integration into the ELT classrooms.
It may be difficult for some students to afford VR headsets.
It may be time-consuming for the whole class to experience just one head-mounted display and practice language skills.
VR sets could be complicated to use for some students.
As can be seen in the bullet points above, there may be positive educational implications for EFL contexts and potential challenges for their integration into the ELT classrooms. As language teachers, we should be aware of all implications AR and VR can yield in the field of ELT.
That is all for today, folks. Thank you for reading and becoming a partner of our experiences throughout the task design. I hope this blog post could be useful for prospective English teachers in integrating AR/VR into their EFL/ESL classrooms. There are my peer's blog link, the YouTube links of the 360-degree videos, the 3D object in the QR codes, and the pages of the task that we carried out below. See you soon, take care!
Tuğrul.
My peer Ertuğrul İğdir's blog post link: https://ertugruligdir.blogspot.com/2024/01/arvr-integrated-assignment.html
The 360-degree YouTube video links that we utilized in our task:
The 3D object link that we utilized in our task:
The pages of the task completed:
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