Language ObstaclesPart II: Language obstacles and web resources

Coimbra Group Workshop on ICT & Student Mobility

University of Leuven, March 4th and 5th 2004

A Virtual Tour/Survival Language Project to encourage inter-University mobility

A proposal for a self-access language-learning adventure game based on a virtual tour of a University

A proposal for a self-access language-learning adventure game based on a virtual tour of a University

The MULL research group at the University of Pavia intends to implement a project to be completed by the end of 2006 which functions as an extension to the University’s website and which:

• caters for the needs of a student who wants to enrol in the University of Pavia but who does not have even a ‘survival knowledge’ of Italian. 

• also caters for the needs of a student of the University of Pavia who wants to enrol in a foreign University.

• the project will be based on a sophisticated adventure game that requires a student to complete a virtual tour of a University in one hour and which calls up films and shots of various parts of that University from a database.

• the goal of the student will be to successfully complete the tour of the University using the language of the country in question: for example the student will learn how to enrol in the University, how to find their way about and how get to the canteen and order a meal using the “target language”.

• the system is based on the MCA learning environment (MCA.UNIPV.IT) currently a relational database handling film-based language learning materials. The project will require a new interface to MCA and the addition of new intelligent tools that monitor a student’s progress in the virtual tour

• The project will require research into the still poorly exploited and poorly understood characteristics of the virtual tour both as genre and as a communications resource in University websites. Of 36 out of the world’s top 300 universities only a few have so far developed this idea in a fully-fledged way (e.g. University of Toronto).

A few universities do contain references to “exploring” the University and to “tours”…but do not exploit the genre’s interactive potential to the full

The virtual tour is a MULTIMODAL GENRE that integrates many easily understandable meaning-making resources. Of these language, however significant, is not necessarily the predominant meaning-making resource. Moreover, the language part is often detachable as in the following illustration (the bubble) and potentially replaceable with different language texts (different languages/different messages). The same goes for the more interpersonal aspects (e.g. different guides).

The proposed tour may benefit the development of University websites in general by reducing the need to rely on translations and constant updates of translations in websites (still a very poorly managed aspect of many of the world’s university websites)

The current approach to the Virtual Tour remains within the realm of classic hypertext. It is essentially (multi-)sequential and based on an exploration of the campus that highlights the INTERPERSONAL. It is not concerned with working out how good students are getting round the campus….and whether they can do so in a foreign language.

With the adoption of intelligent hypertext, the Virtual Tour can be combined with an important feature of the adventure game paradigm: the presence of obstacles that have to be overcome to reach a higher level of exploration (virtual tour) and language expertise. In such a “snakes-and-ladders” approach a student will jump between higher and lower levels (a non-sequential approach to hypertext).

Potentially, a Virtual Tour can explore a University not just physically but also in abstract ways

• A “metaphorical” example from the University of Hong Kong…. Where the university is a book… and the tour is created by page turning.

• This is an example of how in the meaning-making process a high level of graphics appeal can partly overcome the problem of language as an obstacle to comprehension

CEFCommon European Framework of Reference for Languages

• CEF is a six-level benchmarking system developed for language learning by the Council

of Europe that is widely adopted throughout Europe

• Initially, the MULL project will contemplate the first two levels: A1 (Breakthrough) and A2 Waystage)

CEFCommon European Framework of Reference for Languages

and its application to University students

Learning a foreign language to A1 level will, it is often suggested, require 90 hours of study whereas the A2 level will usually require an additional 110 hours. Considerably less time is likely to be required by experienced and highly motivated adult learners, in particular, when working to understand texts relating to a specific social context (such as a University).

The goal of the proposed Virtual Tour/Survival Language Project is to encourage inter-University mobility by reducing these times by a factor of ten.

The tour will only last 1 hour. In other words the student has to complete the tour in the space of 1 hour using a foreign language. But an important feature of the system is to encourage repeated use of the virtual tour, improving language skills and gathering relevant but different information with each go. A user with no previous knowledge should reach A2 level in no more than 20 hours’ self-access website-based study.