ESL students who wear 3D goggles and gloves enter the CAVE (see appendix) room that is a multi-person, room-sized virtual reality system consisting of three walls and a floor. As the language teacher starts the program, all students wear special lightweight glasses that allow them to be in a huge and well-organized Wal-Mart. They can hold any product and put it into their shopping cart by using lightweight gloves. As students shop around, they can talk with other students or ask for some help from a saleslady so that they can make the best choices by comparing products. After that, they talk with a cashier to pay for their purchases. The teacher then stops the program and reviews the scenes with the students in the classroom.
Many educators and researchers (Bricken, 1991, Cromby, Standen, & Brown, 1995.) support the view that virtual reality will afford opportunities to experience environments which, for reasons of time, distance, scale, and safety, would not otherwise be available to many young children, especially those with disabilities (Cromby et al., 1995). This technology will be used to explore, create, play and learn in virtual environments such as crossing roads, talking with strangers, or emergencies. With this technology, young children can visit places that would otherwise be impossible, impractical or too dangerous.
Language teacher can develop programs for realistic situational communication such as job interviews, restaurants, or international airports. Also student can cooperative in one preprogrammed virtual world or can be divided into different virtual worlds depending on the studentsí language levels. Students will interact with classmates or animated characters in the setting with 3D goggles, gloves, or other devices that help seeing and acting in the virtual world. For example, in the interview situation, an interviewee (a language learner) will shake hand with an employee (a 3D animated character) in a meeting room and the employee will start with an interview or with chitchat in the target language. If the students makes any mistake, they can review the scene and try again. Virtual reality will be helpful in overcoming obstacles of traditional language classrooms that highly rely on textbook and local resources in a limited time. Currently, we can find many sites that help users pick a free browser, visit virtual communities, build their own worlds, share with other users, and develop curriculums with virtual reality (see appendix).
The qualitative outcomes of third-person versus first-person learning are very different. A preponderance of third-person learning has meant that student learning outcomes are usually shallow and retention rates are low (Singhal & Zyda, 1999; Chee, 2001). With virtual reality, students will put themselves in various realistic settings and learn the language by their experiences with autonomy or control over their learning experience. According to Fox, Furmanski, Nilan & Small (1994), because of the way in which the virtual environments are modeled and constructed, learners receives appropriate and immediate feedback. The feedback in the language learning encourages cognitive language learning by which students can judge whether they have taken appropriate or correct communication in the virtual world. Eventually the immediate feedbacks from the computer or other students increases motivation and interaction in the language classroom.
Learner-directed communication and problem solving also foster a strong sense of ownership of the activity and its response. Because virtual environments for language learning lend themselves naturally to first-person learning (Chee, 2001), the virtual reality settings will usually be programmed on the use of simulation including the objectives of the language classroom, or the specific needs of learners (Singhal & Zyda, 1999). ESL teachers can set up and save the environment depending on the studentsí need and this will facilitate learner-centered learning which emphasizes encouraging students to construct their own language knowledge. In short, virtual worlds are constructive environments in which learners can create, manipulate and edit any form of digital information with their own needs (Chee, 2001). Thus, virtual reality programming can develop important communication skills rather than just repitition and memorization. Virtual reality curricula may engage ESL students experientially in many possible situations. Students may participate in responsive environments in which they become engaged in full body-mind learning (Maule, 1991).
Also virtual reality supports communication, coordination of actions, and collaboration in learning activities between many different people at the same time (Chee, 2001). In a collaborative virtual environment, people might be a very useful learning resource for one another. The ability to communicate through the technology, either by means of a text or audio chat system, allows users to engage in meaningful language exchanges. The fact that multiple users are engaged in a mutually shared context of experiences makes this a natural human learning activity. (Singhal & Zyda, 1999). Thus, if users are puzzled by an observation or do not understand the meaning of a shared video stream that they are watching together, they will find it very natural to ask questions to others who are sharing the same virtual world. This meaningful interaction motivates learners to learn their target language naturally (Chee, 2001).
Simulation-based language learning overcomes time and space limits and gives learners the sense of their presence. Students are given control over critical elements of the environment. They are able to manipulate the environment such as language, place, and time variables. They can freely play with any situation that might be impossible to conduct in the real world such as interviewing the president of a country. They can also run the simulations as many times as they wish, taking time to focus on different side of the simulation each time it is run. Simulation-based learning environments, in turn, present objects with natural situations for supporting interaction. Thus, users are able to act directly upon virtual handles, levers, or controls in the environment, and the ability to do so creates a sense of presence in the virtual environment (Cromby et al, 1995).
However, virtual reality is a technology, which has the potential for negative implications through misuse and abuse. Students might receive biased cultural perceptions from the virtual reality in addition to learning the language. In other words, the virtual reality programming designersí cultural bias such as stereotype may transfer to young learners unconsciously.
Also children who spend too much time in virtual reality may withdraw from real-life (Cromby et al, 1995; Winn 1993). Therefore, it might cause social isolation. For instance, a Christmas party in virtual reality cannot be replaced with a real one. With virtual reality, students may practice the target language at the Christmas dinner setting, but they might not learn the sprit of Christmas and meaning of a family gathering. Learning language is not only learning how to speak the language but also learning the cultural concepts. But as it becomes more and more convenient to view high-quality representations of objects and communicate with others, this type of access eliminates a richness and depth of experience that students can get in the real world.
According to Pastore (2000), the biggest gap in the Internet adoption rates in the U.S. exists between rich and poor, not between ethnic groups. He points that ethic background alone does not explain the existence of a digital gap. Although a combination of factors determines if a consumer is online, income is the strongest predictor. Across all groups, online penetration rises as income rises. Virtual reality technologies are extremely expensive. So the financial situation of the school districts may be critical to provide the rich learning environment offered by virtual reality. Naturally the rich districts will more likely use the virtual reality technologies in their school that provide a better chances for students to learn their target languages or other learning. Also there will be private virtual reality institutes that may provide extra opportunities to learn after school. However, it may cause economic gaps between students depending on the parentsí wealth. Students who have rich parents or are in the rich districts may learn the target language faster.