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Home > Learn Spanish > Using Second Life to learn Spanish

Using Second Life to learn Spanish

Virtual reality can help us learn better Spanish
 
 
Second life is a virtual reality world that anyone can access via the internet. This virtual 3D community is becoming a kind of parallel society in which we can find companies and institutions with a global character, that have educative projects at an international level.
 
Many Spanish schools that have moved to the forefront of technology offer online Spanish courses via Second Life. The ´Instituto Cervantes` is one of the pioneering institutions in Spain, creating an online Spanish class in Second Life for teaching and learning Spanish.
 
This technology, based on Web 2.0 allows users to speak Spanish with people from anywhere in the world.
 
 
This could be one of our online Spanish classes
 
Furthermore, Second life relies on a set of tools, designed for Spanish teachers for when they are choosing the technology they will use in their online language classes. They include the following:
 
  1. Voice chat allows us to work in pairs or in groups.
  1. Second life allows us to incorporate authentic exercises taken from videos, images and auditions, as well as giving us access to certain websites.
  1. The written messaging system allows us to communicate on an individual basis with our students. We may well clarify the meaning of Spanish phrases with new vocabulary for them.
  1. We can create written notes for our students. This system allows us to work with the written texts that we created.
  1. We can add gestures to our character (avatar) to express a welcome, to affirm, deny, laugh and say goodbye.
  1. We can move ourselves and explain actions such as walking, jogging, skating, etc… We can also teleport to other islands and send our students ´avatares` to find information in other islands, as practice.
 Astorga Obispado Peregrino
A tool that is still in its experimental stage of teaching Spanish in Second life is the ´Sloodle`, which is a series of modules for Moodle1 which connects the virtual world of Second life with a web-based learning Moodle. This allowing you to create courses that have presence in both the real and the virtual world.