Some weeks ago I interviewed Mr. Chen of Vive Immersive Labs regarding the interesting research that HTC is conducting regarding the applications of virtual reality. Today, thanks to Mr. Michael Cao of Vive Immersive Labs, I got to know the details of another experiment regarding another amazing use of VR: help in learning a new language.
Almost all Chinese people study English at school, but if you have ever had the opportunity to speak English with a Chinese person, you would have noticed that in many cases his/her oral English skills are far than optimal. Since Chinese people usually speak in Chinese with their mates and often watch videos and websites all in Chinese, they usually practice very few the English language and so they have difficulties in gaining a high proficiency. That’s why Vive Immersive Labs and the PTA Laboratory of the Psychology Department of Beijing Normal University have conducted experiments to study how VR can help in learning and practicing English. I have had the opportunity to ask some questions to prof. Li, the professor of PTA laboratory (one of the most famous lab focusing on psychology in China) that has conducted this experiment and learn more how VR can increase our skills in learning a new language.
Hello Mr. Li. Why did you decide to experiment with English learning in VR?
VR is a new form of interaction that can be applied in many industries, especially in the field of education. We have seen VR give new vitality to teaching.
Taking English learning as an example, we can see that many Chinese students can get high scores, but their oral ability is very weak due to the lack of an authentic “foreign environment”. We are thinking about whether we can use VR technology to let Chinese teenagers be physically exposed to the “foreign environment” and get better learning results.
Therefore, we decided to conduct experimental research to quantify the value of VR technology in second language learning by examining the changes in the level of spoken English after using VR technology.
How was the study conducted?
The experimental subjects were randomly divided into two groups, one using the VR version and one using the PC version of the learning software for learning. Each person has completed four 25-35 minutes of English study in 2 weeks, 2 to 3 days apart. The content and duration of each study were supervised by the tester, and questionnaires were filled out according to the plan. VR group and PC group were cross-ordered to reduce sequence effect and time effect.
The participants were freshman students in non-English majors of Beijing Normal University. There were two groups: the VR group contained 22 people while PC group included 21 people. The average age of the subjects was 19 (SD = 0.664) years old, where 6 males (14%) and 37 females (86%) made the whole participants.
What have been the main results? What are the main advantages of using VR to learn a new language?
Students in VR group have increased self-expectation in speaking, reduced the degree of learning anxiety, and increased learning excitement, indicating that the sense of immediacy in VR is better enhancing the confidence and interest of students in oral English learning. Students in the VR group have significantly longer recording duration and higher accuracy scores after the experiment, suggesting that VR can improve the performance of oral English learning.
The most different part between traditional learning and VR is that: one is to study alone, and the other is to have a teacher.
Language is a relatively abstract subject. It needs to be studied in a specific environment. It needs to be problem-oriented to learn, but traditional language learning follows the teacher and follows the teaching materials. This is a problem: Chinese people love the face, often worry that they are not good at speaking, and they are afraid to speak English because of negative comments.
VR technology’s “immersive learning” is in line with the language learning environment. Students learn in a simulated environment without worrying about being “jokes”. This learning method respects the learning rules of foreign languages and therefore promotes students’ foreign language learning.
Now, we have seen a lot of foreign language learning software on the market, and we are also creating a scene-based learning model, which is a preliminary attempt to create “immersive, interactive” foreign language learning.
It has some quantitative data, but it’s too hard to understand as it requires some higher background knowledge of mathematics.
What are instead the drawbacks?
There are still two problems we have to face.
First, in terms of software, more people will be involved in the field of VR education in the future, and more VR content and software applications suitable for children and adults will be developed to form a larger learning environment.
Second, the hardware, the current VR headsets are still somewhat cumbersome, the future VR devices should be more lightweight, wireless, to reduce the physical negatives of learners wearing VR devices. At the same time, it is necessary to further strengthen research guidance. It is necessary to consider whether long-term wear will have an impact on vision, and strive to achieve good learning outcomes without affecting health.
Why Virtual Reality is able to help in such an important way?
As I said before, because it can offer that authentic “foreign environment” that currently Chinese students lack.
It can be extended to other languages, but further research is needed to extend the conclusions to other subjects or different types of learning.
This is because this experiment is mainly aimed at the study of “spoken English”, so it simulates the scene of English learning, which is consistent with the commonality of the second study, but it is not necessarily suitable for the learning situation of other subjects.
Does this confirm that apps like Mondly VR are maybe the best way to learn a new language?
VR will not subvert the traditional education model, and the future is the cooperation between traditional teaching and VR teaching.
If there is only traditional teaching, there is no individual independent exploration and real learning environment; if you only learn in the VR environment from beginning to end, there is a lack of integration with the real environment.
Because the learning situation provided by VR software is limited, but the real scene is changeable and complex, in the future, if VR is to be applied to teaching, it needs to be put into the real environment, combined with the real environment and traditional teaching.
What are the future researches you will carry on?
Add the function of vocabulary notebook to learn unfamiliar words separately, and the function of detailed word explanations (pronunciations, English-to-Chinese translations, and exercises).
Improve the accuracy of the scoring system of the software and increase the interestingness and interactivity of the software.
I really want to thank Mr. Cao and Mr. Li for the time they have dedicated to me. Thanks to this interview, I’ve had the confirmation of what I always thought: that VR can really help us a lot in learning a new language… even if I would need it more to learn Chinese than English (but HTC guys already know Chinese, so I guess they won’t do that Chinese learning app for me, damn!). But it has been interesting to know that there are now quantitative data proving this: together with the interview, they provided me tables with all the actual numbers of the experiment, that prove what they say (I’ve not inserted them in the article to not make it feel heavy, but if you want them, you can ask).
I also found interesting that Mr. Li hasn’t said that VR learning will substitute teachers: he has said that VR will be a tool that will help traditional learning, not one that will substitute it. This is important, in my opinion, giving all the worries of people regarding new technologies destroying lots of jobs or regarding VR alienating us all from the others. I think that a mix of the old and the new is what can make real education to improve in a healthy way. Can’t wait for this to happen in all the schools of the world.