Abstract
This study adds to a new area of research that seeks to harmonize language pedagogies in classrooms and language learning in virtual environments. Harmonious languaging uses co-actional and symmetrical structural dynamics to compare three environments in a Chinese school: a baseline traditional classroom using textbooks, the virtual space of Quest Atlantis [1], and a comparable class using print-based handouts. Each has a different design and thus features, and we show that these affect languaging. We found languaging styles that were contingent upon a) the teacher (e.g. answering questions, correcting, inquiring, repeating, and writing in the form of note-taking), b) Quest Atlantis virtual material artifacts (e.g. individuating multiscalar coordination between reading and writing), and c) the teacher and the handout (e.g. answering questions, self-expressing, and reflection). These styles are important for pedagogy. In our view, the field neglects the harmonious languaging style that arises around virtual worlds. There is lack of engagement with language-as-part-of-nonlinguistic-action. From the distributed view, we show an example of how foreign language learning is facilitated in an experiential domain where verbal patterns are evaluated immediately in the coordination of reading and writing, for which avatar actions, link-clicking, and using dictionaries become other-oriented modes of ambient action.
About the authors
Dongping Zheng (b. 1970) is Associate Professor at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her research interests include (trans) languaging, ecolinguistics, virtual world/reality, and mobile assisted language learning. Her publications include: “An ecological community becoming: Language learning as first-order experiencing with place and mobile technologies” (2018), “Eco-dialogical learning and translanguaging in open-ended 3D virtual learning environments” (2017), and “Recurrent languaging activities in World of Warcraft: Skilled linguistic action meets the Common European Framework of Reference” (2016).
Ying Hu (b. 1987) is a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University. Her research interests include cognitive flexibility in language learning and technology-assisted learning. Her publications include “Cognitive flexibility theory and the accelerated development of adaptive readiness and adaptive response to novelty” (2019), “Student in the shell: The robotic body and student engagement” (2019), “Eco-dialogical learning and translanguaging in open-ended 3D virtual learning environments: Where place, time, and objects matter” (2017).
Ivan Banov (b. 1987) is a doctoral candidate at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research interests include language learning in informal settings, technology-assisted language learning, and ecological linguistics.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to the principal investigators of the Atlantis Remixed project, Dr. Sasha Barab, Dr. Melissa Gresalfi, and their team for their generous support within the larger project of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Quest Atlantis International Consortium of Scholars for the Study of Gaming and Learning. We are in debt to Stephen Cowley for his illuminating insights in helping us to make the distributed language approach accessible to our practical and pedagogical study. Without his critical comments and careful constructive feedback, our discussion of ambient action and languaging styles, for example, would have been bland. Our appreciation extends to Kristi Newgarden who provided meticulous comments and suggestions, including but not limited to lexicon-grammar and content. Our special thanks are warmly granted to the teachers and student participants, and staff support, especially Ms. Ying Li and Ms. Xiuling Tang of No. 90 Middle School in Changchun China. Without their dedication to language education and technology innovation, this project would not have been successfully implemented in China.
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