Rethinking Language Learning: Virtual Worlds as a Catalyst for

FORMULATIONS & FINDINGS

Rethinking Language Learning: Virtual Worlds as a Catalystfor Change

IJLM

Dongping ZhengUniversity of [email protected]

Kristi NewgardenUniversity of [email protected]

Keywords

coaction

embodiment

distributed cognition

languaging

values-realizing

second language acquisition

pedagogy

virtual worlds

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Volume 3, Number 2

Abstract

Research on educationally designed game-basedvirtual learning environments and virtual worldshas begun to explore the affordances of 3D meta-verses for engaging learners in ways that contrastwith formal schooling. Applying constructs fromecological psychology, distributed cognition, andsociocultural perspectives, design-based longitu-dinal studies have shown the quality of learningtaking place in technology-supported collabora-tive environments. But what are the affordancesof virtual environments for second languagelearning? How can we design for a nonlinear ex-perience of action and interaction that exploitsthese affordances? We explored current languageteaching practices in Second Life and found thatmany educators simply apply their classroomapproaches in the virtual space, treating the en-vironment merely as input. Designing for op-timal learning opportunities in virtual worldsrequires that we rethink second language acquisi-tion by grounding it in the ecological psychologyconcepts of perception-action, values-realizing,coaction, and languaging. We call for a rethink-ing of pedagogies based on input/output modelsthat imply a linear progression from an initialto a goal state. Instead cognition is embodiedand distributed, and avatars in 3D worlds allowus to experience virtual environments in embo-died, dialogical ways. Language learning in vir-tual worlds calls for design that prioritizes op-portunities for distributed meaning-making andcoaction in values-realizing activities that go be-yond task-based learning, autonomy, and con-struction of a second language identity.

Zheng / Rethinking Language Learning 13

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Introduction

Multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) and mas-sively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) can pro-vide a set of affordances for language learning andteaching, such as opportunities for repeated practice,interaction, feedback, scaffolding, and socializationin situ (Gee 2003, 2007; Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio2009; Zheng et al. 2009). These are not only crucialfactors for language development but are the mainfactors that sustain a community of practice, which inturn cultivates language use by engaging a communityDiscourse (Lave and Wenger 1991; Gee 1999/2003).However, as we explored current teaching practicesin Second Life (SL), one of the most popular virtualworlds among educators, we found that activities andapproaches—for example, task-based activities, role-play, vocabulary and grammar games—resemble thoseused in real world second language (L2) classrooms.We also noted the use of innovative techniques, in-cluding the creation of virtual world presentations,podcasts, and project-based learning. We respect theefforts of teachers who are early adopters of virtualworlds, but we feel that some of the most powerfulaffordances of these environments remain untapped.

By examining SL teachers’ blogs, websites, andpresentations, we found that instructional designand methods are largely rooted in the information-processing paradigm of cognition, which is at thecore of predominating views of second language ac-quisition (SLA) that tend to view language as code.Our concern here is not with the larger argumentfor rethinking learning theories grounded in in-formation processing but with the probable fail-ure of long-held views in SLA to generate virtualworld pedagogies that capitalize on embodied, dy-namic learning within the diverse discourse com-munities that exist in online worlds. The value ofvirtual worlds for language learning may not be re-alized without a rethinking not only of SLA but oflanguage as a complex adaptive system with an in-tegral role in individual and social cognition andof learning as an ecological agent/environmentachievement. To rethink language and learning ina dynamic nonlinear fashion, we ground our dis-cussion in ecological psychology and sociocultural,dialogical, and distributed perspectives. Together,these views provide a basis for crafting a new frame-work for understanding virtual worlds as power-ful technologies that afford co-presence, coaction,

distributed meaning-making, values-realizing, andcoagency.

Key Concepts

Central to our argument are several concepts linkedto the distributed view of language. Our understand-ing of these concepts has been enriched greatly by ourcontact with members of the Distributed LanguageGroup. The distributed view recognizes language notas a form of knowledge represented by symbols in theminds of individuals but as a social institution (Port2010) that is similar to other social institutions (e.g.,education or religion) that arise to support the coor-dination of behavior of a community and exist acrossmembers of a community, as well as across time andspace. Language in service of real time coordination ofbehavior, or first-order language, is distinguished fromorientation to linguistic structures and verbal patterns,which are sociocultural constructs considered to besecond-order language (Kravchenko 2007). First-orderand second-order language belong to different con-sensual domains, yet they are related. In first-orderlanguaging, meanings are constructed on the fly as werealize values contingent upon the sociocultural envi-ronment. On the other hand, making sense of writtenmarks draws on accumulated experience of world,speech, and writing (Kravchenko 2007).

Theorization of language in terms of first-orderand second-order allows us to look at language as aperception, action, and caring system (Hodges 2007a,2007b, 2009) without neglecting the fact that writ-ten language and other social artifacts have an im-portant role in sense-making. The first and secondorder are mutually entailing for languaging in realtime and space and for literacy development.1 Theessential properties of language are that it is physi-cally grounded, as well as a biologically, socially, andculturally determined joint activity of human beings(Kravchenko 2007).

Embodiment

We take cognition to be embodied activity, as stronglyevidenced by findings on mirror neurons, a typeof neuron that activates similarly whether we per-form actions or perceive others performing simi-lar actions (Barsalou 2008). Other research on lan-guage embodiment (as summarized by Atkinson2010) reveals activation of language areas of the brain

14 International Journal of Learning and Media / Volume 3 / Number 2


during sensorimotor action and, conversely, activa-tion of motor areas during speech; relationships be-tween comprehension speed and spatially orienteddescriptions; and faster recognition of words ratedas high for body-object interaction. Distributed ap-proaches show that functional aspects of cognitiondraw on external resources; results depend on pro-cesses that are distributed among neural structures,ecosocial processes, and bodily activity (Thibault 2005).These ecosocial processes and bodily activities are dif-ficult to achieve in classroom settings where socioma-terial artifacts (for engaging meaningful conversationsand augmented interactions) and a terrestrial environ-ment (for locomotive exploration) are missing (Reed1996). Classrooms provide a set of instructional andinteractional opportunities that center learners in in-stitutional knowledge and/or imagined behavioralaction and interaction with the world. However, interms of affordances for engaging students in embod-ied, socioculturally diverse, and embedded activitieswith others using the L2, or in real time interactionwith native speakers of the L2, many 3D avatar-basedmultiplayer virtual worlds have more to offer.

To realize the full language learning potential ofvirtual worlds, we must first acknowledge the embod-ied state of the avatar, which does not merely rep-resent but is one with the person in control. Whenwe participate in the life of a 3D virtual world, we areimmersed and present. The boundaries of our bodiesand physical environment are extended. Embodiedin avatars, we have the ability to move, to change ourvisual perspective, and to interact with objects andothers in our surroundings. We control our perceivingand acting in order to accomplish specific goals. Theaffordances for embodiment that allow for agency andmovement in a multi-user virtual world such as SL (orcertain multiplayer online games) distinguish theseenvironments from other social media that supportco-presence in a less physical sense (e.g., being presentsynchronously as when we text chat using an instantmessage tool).

The ability to be—our embodiment—in a virtualspace is the feature that differentiates experiences ofvirtual worlds from those of other digital environ-ments. The ability to be with others, as one wouldhave coffee with another, and to do things with oth-ers, such as designing and building a house withanother, are the complementary features that makevirtual worlds potentially ideal spaces for languagelearning. The affordances for co-presence and coac-

tion are relevant and important when we considerlanguage as a mode of action rather than a code (Love2004, 2007; Kravchenko 2009).

The Code View of Language

Love (2004, 2007) and Kravchenko (2007, 2009) drawclear connections between the code view of languageand what have become the dominant practices in lan-guage teaching. Kravchenko describes how the codeview developed:

For a long time the true nature of linguisticsigns was obscured by strong beliefs that signswere artificial, conventional, and arbitraryentities intentionally produced by humanbeings for the purpose of communicationunderstood as exchange of encoded mean-ings. These encoded meanings (or “mentalcontent,” “thoughts,” “abstract knowledge,”“complex propositions,” etc.) were assignedto special entities known as “sign vehicles.”Allegedly, these were then conveyed from thespeaker’s head into the listener’s head via themedium of oral speech—hence the so-called“code-model” of communication based onthe “conduit” metaphor. (Kravchenko 2007,p. 651)

The code view has led to instructional approachesthat treat language as denotational rather than con-notational (Kravchenko 2009) and that emphasize thelearning of rules and conventionalized routines; it hasalso led linguists and other language researchers toconflate written language forms and structures withlanguage in real-time communication and coaction(languaging). This is referred to in the distributed lan-guage community as the written language bias (Linell2005). According to Linell, the language sciencescontain 101 points of bias, particularly in linguis-tics, which is deeply influenced by a long traditionof analyzing only written language. Modern linguistictheories, including psycholinguistics and sociolin-guistics, have a tendency to treat processing activitiesin terms of object-like, static, autonomous, and per-manent structures. Instead, Linell (1998, 2005, 2009)proposes a more integrated and eclectic approach inwhich structure and action are seen as two interpene-trating perspectives.



Languaging and DEEDS

Many of the teachers we observed viewed SL as anenvironment that provides a rich source of input, aview we trace to a narrow and individualistic viewof language as code. The pedagogies that grew fromthe input-output model do not account for the mul-tiple timescales across which learning occurs or thedynamic, distributed, multimodal nature of meaning-making (Lemke 2002; Baldry and Thibault 2005; Jewitt2006). Because students are increasingly invited toparticipate in virtual worlds—whose semiotically rich,interactive, domain-based contexts allow for multipletrajectories of learning—we ought to adopt the alter-native concept of languaging (Maturana 1988, 2008;Linell 2009): “a mode of action,” as Cowley notes ina personal communication, “that integrates patternsthat function in different time scales: we integratehow we move and feel, with what we hear ‘us’—meand you—saying.” In Cowley’s description we rec-ognize the integration of language and cognition—specifically, the role of language in “co-ordinatingcognitive processes among and within individuals”(Language as Social Coordination Conference 2010).

We have adopted the acronym DEEDS (Walmsley2008) to emphasize that cognition is dynamic, em-bodied, embedded, distributed, and situated. Appliedto educational settings, this framework calls for a re-thinking of teaching goals, practices, and learningoutcomes as a dialogical achievement rather than as amonological effort (Linell 2009).

Languaging as Values-Realizing Behavior

We are most excited about the affordances of virtualenvironments for action-based, contextualized, per-sonally meaningful learning that involves the con-struction of the self (Kravchenko 2007) and relatingto others dialogically (Bakhtin 1991; Salgado, Ferreira,and Fraccascia 2006; Linell 2009). Gee (1999/2003)points out that not only language-in-use makes uswho we are but also habits of communication; for ex-ample, the kind of food a Chinese international stu-dent in an American graduate school eats, the type ofcourses she or he is interested in, the community sheor he participates in, and routines such as when she orhe calls family in China.

We concur with Hodges that “the play in valuesis what allows actions to function intentionally andadaptively” (Hodges 2007b, p. 591). Hodges (2007a,2007b) asks us to consider conversing as a values-

realizing behavior. In a communicative project, eco-logical pragmatism is fundamental (Hodges 2009).When interlocutors carefully comfort each otherthrough their language choices—for example, bycalling a male cat a “bachelor” in order to emphasizethe bond between three (two human and one feline)family members living in a household together aftera fourth member of their household has passed on(Hodges 2007b)—they are demonstrating an act ofvalues-realizing rather than adhering to rules of se-mantics. When a parent says, ‘‘I’m sorry Robbie, butwe had to let all the servants go last week’’ (Hodges2007b, p. 592), he or she is using humor to soften arequest to complete the chore of making a bed. In alighthearted, caring way the parent leads the child totake responsibility for the task at hand. Summarizingthese examples of social interactions, Hodges notes,

Conversations depend on action-perceptionsystems operating in dialogical arrays to ori-ent us to the ecosystem and to identify itsgoods, and the directions in which we mightgo to realize them. Language, thus rendered,is a values-realizing activity, one that allowsus to engage in the moral tasks of caring forothers, ourselves, and the ecosystem withinwhich we all live. (Hodges 2007b, p. 602)

This article examines current practices and reflectionsin and around SL. By grounding our analysis in theDEEDS view, we propose that designs for ecologicallanguage learning niches in virtual worlds be basedon a distributed view of language. Although actionsdepend on functionally distributed systems (includingcomputers), learners interact as living agents whoseembodiment and histories make the resulting lang-uage and experience both situated and dialogical(Bakhtin 1991; Linell 2009), context as a dynamicand temporally unfolding process (Goodwin 2000;Stuart 2010) that is necessary to a meaning-making,values-realizing, and identity-constructing activity(Gee 1999/2003; van Lier 2004; Hodges 2007b). Vir-tual worlds are more than an addition to the list oftechnologies that support computer-mediated com-munications or communities. They should pushus to rethink human psychology, language, and L2acquisition.

Exploration of the potential for learning in virtualworlds has just begun. But without a shift from indi-vidualistic views of learning, researchers are likely tobe constrained by a framework that cannot account



for the embodied, distributed meaning-making thatvirtual worlds afford. Viewing the virtual world en-vironment as input is likely to lead to instructionaldesign that fails to draw upon the affordances of alearning environment in which learning is “perpetu-ally folding into, unfolding from, enfolding the otherand vice versa,” and in which the learner, “the liv-ing body, in its reciprocally affective co-agential livedexperience anticipates, imagines, and enacts how itexpects prenoetically its world will continue to be”(Stuart 2010, p. 308). We call for innovation in the-ory and method as L2 researchers and educators beginto explore virtual environments, and we find supportfor our perspective in research that has revealed theaffordances of virtual worlds for first and second lan-guage literacy development (Gee 2003, 2004; Blackand Steinkuehler 2009; Zheng et al. 2009), participa-tion in Discourse communities (Steinkuehler 2006),and situationally embodied curricula (Barab, Zuikeret al. 2007).

Rethinking Language with Virtual Worlds

Four concepts prominent in second language acqui-sition (SLA) and computer-mediated communication(CMC) pedagogies are transfer, input/output, tasks,and learning about. We reconceive these as part of anembodied, action-based array of social and dialogicalpractices:

1. from transfer to coaction2. from input/output to affordances/languaging3. from tasks to learning environments4. from learning about to learning to be/become

From Transfer to Coaction

What Is Language For?

Educators who are skeptical of the value of technologycommonly ask, “Will the skills learned in the virtualworld be transferred to real-life situations?” or “Willtext chat skills reflect communicative skills?” Theseare important questions to ask because as educatorswe feel compelled to ask whether students can ap-ply what they learn in our classes to their future jobsand whether students can use the language they have“learned” from their language classes in real-life situ-ations. However, if we look at language dialogically,these “application” questions lose validity becausethe skills gained in game play or interaction are the

real life skills embodied in action. As Linell (2009)explains:

A dialogical theory of language must assignprimacy to action, rather than to pure cogni-tion and to transmission of cognitive prod-ucts; one might classify such a dialogical the-ory about what is sometimes called “situatedlanguage” as “praxeological.” It deals with ac-tual performative actions in the world, ratherthan language as an abstract form or mentalobject that is “used.” (Linell 2009, p. 274)

Language-learning activities that are designed from asituated perspective need not be concerned with trans-fer issues; that is, with the transfer from “cognition”to “communication.” Such activities do not involvedistinct steps or stages. Instead they involve learningacts in which learners simultaneously “do” things andcommunicate in the real world by engaging in lan-guaging (Linell 2009). The question of transfer may bereframed as a question of whether instruction enableslearners to move toward their goals of increased par-ticipation in the Discourse communities that matterto them, not because they are able to produce appro-priate language output based on internalized knowl-edge of rules or routines but because they have learnedto integrate language and action adaptively in novelsituations according to social and cultural norms. Thislearning emerges through experiences of languaging.

This notion of languaging can be traced toMaturana (1988), who says it occurs when organismsrecurrently interact with one another in the consen-sual coordination of actions that are phenomena ofthe praxis of daily life. Languaging takes places whenwe need to coordinate our actions repeatedly. Gee’s(2003) observations about repeated and recursive prac-tice in video game play draw attention to the affor-dances of complex games that provide learners withstrong motivation to do the same thing again andagain. Gee’s work makes salient the notion of actionand interaction in situated literacy practices.

When modeling and scaffolding Chinese cal-ligraphy for non-Chinese students, a teacher mightcontinually speak Chinese while teaching the stu-dents how to hold a calligraphy brush, how to starta stroke, how much ink to dip the brush with, andso on. Meanwhile, students mimic by trial and error,asking questions as they attempt to replicate the pro-cess. At the beginning, interactions might look likethis: the teacher demonstrates how to hold a brush,



using actions and only a few indicational words suchas “bi yao shuzhi” (hold brush straight down).2 At thebeginning, students might be able to ask questionsonly with routine words or with a mix of first and sec-ond languages; for example, “Laoshi, wode moshui toomuch” (Teacher, I had too much ink). In the socio-cultural practice of “doing” art, students coordinatetheir actions with language; for example, inviting con-versation, sharing their perspectives and excitement,and introducing new ideas (Reed 1996; Linell 2009;Cowley 2011; Zheng forthcoming).3

In first language development, babies, as self-regulatory agents, use their caregivers as a resourceto discover verbal patterns that later shape their rea-soning and identity (Cowley 2007b, 2009b). By thesame token, in an L2 or foreign language immersionsetting, learners, instead of being passive receivers,can exploit circumstances by using expression to trackteachers’ or classmates’ display while acting to real-ize values for their partners. L2 learners, especially atthe absolute beginner level, can be shaped as agentswho self-regulate the expressive dynamics that con-nect their bodies and “the verbal patterns of a culturalheritage” (Cowley 2007b, p. 98). These circumstancesdo not exist naturally—as they do in first-languagebaby-caregiver-object triadic interactions (Reed 1996).Cowley (2007a) calls such coordination of actions“coaction.” However, semiotically rich environmentscan be designed in classrooms or in virtual worlds(Barab, Dodge et al. 2007; Zheng forthcoming) to al-low learners to engage in coaction in the L2.4

What Are the Affordances of Virtual Worlds?

Two theoretical explanations of the transfer of vir-tual knowledge to real world practices are possible.They are conceptual blending (Thomas and Brown2009) and coaction (Cowley 2007a; Wegner andSparrow 2007). Thomas and Brown (2009) use theterm conceptual blending to talk about “a sense offit,” to emphasize that the space a gamer resides inis both virtual and physical to the extent that outsidegame resources are drawn upon to empower his or heravatar’s actions. The perceptions of other players andself-dispositions are thought to exist in the blendedspace of virtual and real that is imagined to be in thegamer’s head. Dispositions do not move from a virtualto a physical domain. Rather, the avatar-embedded,information-rich world and the physically and cul-turally information-rich world are brought together

within the mental construct as blended resources inservice of interactions. No transfer occurs.

This is because it governs (1) our extended body(our physical self with virtual world effectivities)and our avatar; (2) our extended body and the ex-tended bodies of others as avatars in the virtual; and(3) between the living participants. Coaction is al-ways coupled with interactions that are collectivized(Reed 1996) or dependent on social norms. In con-trast to interaction, coaction cannot be reduced tonegotiations of meaning, action, and identity (Zhengforthcoming); however, coactions are seemingly co-constructed, are always prospective, and involve al-terity (taking other people’s perspectives) (Cowley2007a; Linell 2007, 2009; Zheng forthcoming). In avirtual space where our avatars can perform actionsthat physical bodies are not capable of (e.g., flying),the avatar’s context offers new affordances on whichthe physical body/mind can act. Once the physicalbody/mind is attuned to a new understanding of anenvironment, we will take our avatars to other, as yetunexplored, contexts. The recursive, entwining per-ception and action system created by the coactionbetween our avatars and ourselves does not necessarilyinvolve verbal languaging, although internal dialoguemay arise in this coupling (Linell 2009) with invisi-ble third parties (Salgado 2007), and virtual patternscan be discovered to shape future language stances(Cowley 2011).5

We agree with Love (2004, 2007) and Kravchenko(2007, 2009) that treating language as a code leads toa view that language development and learning are amatter of decoding the rules that combine “sets andsystems” and “abstract objects (linguistic forms or ex-pressions)” (Linell 2009, p. 275). In the code view,Cowley argues in a personal communication, onecannot avoid the cognitive input-output model oflearning, and problem solving reduces to a journey be-tween an initial state and a goal state. The code viewhas had the effect of downplaying our bodies’ role inlanguaging, as well as the recursive perception and ac-tion system and the reciprocally affective coagentialanticipatory experience.

Clark argues that “the emphasis on language asmedium of communication tends to blind us to a sub-tler but equally potent role: the role of language as atool that alters the nature of the computational taskinvolved in various kinds of problem solving” (Clark2001, p. 193). Rejecting internalist views of mind,Cowley summarizes the contributors’ view in a special



issue of Language Science by stating, “If learning to talkuses cultural ecology, language arises as co-actionsets off both individual and social learning” (Cow-ley 2007a, p. 577). From here we can begin to describethe second aspect of coaction in virtual spaces: thecoacting of avatars/bodies. In the distributed view oflanguage, in contrast to form-based approaches—thatis, “theories or models that abstract language from be-havior” (Cowley 2007a, p. 578)—we trace language to“a domain of recursive consensual co-ordinations ofaction” (Maturana 1988, p. 47), or languaging as an“activity by co-acting bodies” (Cowley 2007a, p. 577).In coaction, our unified avatars/bodies pursue valuesthat allow us to care to talk to one another (via textchat and/or voice chat) and to use one another’s ut-terances and actions as context to seek good prospectsor further opportunities to engage with one anotherin mutually rewarding ways (Hodges 2007b). In bothkinds of coaction—that is, coaction involving (1) agamer’s physical body and his or her avatar; and (2)coacting avatars—we orient toward the other and cre-ate new affordances for both. Coaction is prospective,always feeds forward, and in and of itself is transform-ing. All of this is lost in input-output models that re-duce communication to information transfer.

Current technology constrains avatars to prepro-grammed gestures (waving, bowing, yawning, etc.).Until technology advances to the extent that an avatarcan mimic human body gestures,6 we cannot inves-tigate language as embodied action that coordinatesour actions by guiding the attention and orientationof self and others (Tomasello et al. 2005) in a fully em-bodied way. However, Fowler and colleagues (2008)found that when speakers engage in a cooperativetask requiring them to talk to one another, they en-train their postural sway regardless of whether theycan see one another during the task. In the socialworld, coaction is manifested in the reflexive stancetoward other participants, the current talk, and theactions in progress (Goodwin 2000); in physically cou-pled action; in psychologically coordinated action; inmimicry; and in obedience and conformity (Wegnerand Sparrow 2007). Coaction is also attributed to af-fectively laden, anticipatory dynamics with the feltpresence of the other, in so-called enkinaesthesia(Stuart 2010).

What Needs to Be Rethought?

Transfer implies an abstract concept in which previ-ously learned schemas are superimposed on new situ-

ations. By contrast, in coaction, authorship is creditedto both the physical body and the avatar. The bound-aries at which tools (technology, avatar, etc.) end andthe body begins are blended. In the perception-actionframework, one does not need to learn an abstract lan-guage and then apply it. Learning takes place in themoment of perceiving (the structure and meaning oflanguage and other semiotic resources) and movingthe body along multiple and heterarchical nonlineartrajectories. The actions of using a keyboard to con-trol an avatar’s movement and to say things by typing(or by voice) are coupled with the need to coordinateactions. This activity differs significantly from collabo-rative text-making.

Collaborative text-making, such as writing to-gether in Google Docs or on a wiki or chatting onSkype or AIM, shapes acts of embodying text in mul-tiple heterarchical trajectories through thoughts andrepresentations but does not necessarily involve em-bodied sense-making using artifacts embedded inthe environment. However, in a 3D space, coactionshapes acts of embodying text in multiple heterar-chical trajectories through both text/audio chat andbody exploration and action. Avatar-body coupledexploration and coaction illustrates the key differ-ence between 2D and 3D environments. The twotypes of coaction that occur within the 3D environ-ment are critical features of distributed meaning-making and values-realizing cognition systems. Thetraditional view of the separation of cognition andcommunication, mind and body, and body andworld falls short in explaining how learning takesplace in a 3D space. In virtual worlds, particularlythose that center on a multiplayer online game, thecoaction of players can be understood as a creativeprocess from which culture and identities emerge(Ricento 2005), values are realized, and cognitive andlinguistic effectivities are transformed.

Current Practice. The following entry from an SL lan-guage teacher illustrates the pervasive view of lan-guage as content that is processed and becomes out-put. The topic is project-based learning (Kilpatrick1918; Barron et al. 1998; Stoller 2006; van Lier 2006),which inherently involves coaction and languaging.Nonetheless, the author considers it to be merely anintermediate step in the language acquisition process.

A major goal of project-based instruction iscomprehensible output . . ., which generally



occurs both during the project and as the finalproduct of the project. Some ideas for PBL[project-based learning] in SL for languagelearning:

• Language learning students explore differ-ent ways of how SL can be used for learn-ing and/or practicing the target languageand present their results in different ways(exhibition, presentation, panel discus-sion, book+presentation, blog, essay, re-port, etc.)

• CLIL [Content and Language IntegratedLearning]: Biology, Sociology, etc. (visitrelated places, experiment, explore, inter-view, etc.—depending on the topic—thencreate a final product to present theirresults)

• BE [Business English]: Set up a business,have project meetings, etc, report results

• Event organisation (students take on thedifferent roles necessary in the organ-isation of an event, plan the steps andexecute their plan (e.g. an exhibition, anend-of-course party, a conference, a chari-table event, etc.) (Kern 2009a, n.p.)

The activities based on the project-based learningprinciples this teacher suggests are excellent from theDEEDS point of view. If they are carried out, studentsmay have a fun and engaging experience. However,by saying “a major goal of project-based instructionis comprehensible output,” the teacher underminesmany of the values of project-based learning—for ex-ample, the need for coaction, creativity, emotion, andproblem finding. In designing activities from a dia-logical languaging perspective, one should not holdto expectations of a fixed outcome. Instead, the focusshould be on embedding activities in which learn-ers are supported as they explore and act in the envi-ronment, engage in coactions in unanticipated situa-tions, and follow nonlinear trajectories (van Lier 2004;Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008; Zheng forthcom-ing). Therefore “practicing the target language” is onlyone by-product of a project. Among the many othervalues occurring and recurring during coaction are op-portunities to share perspectives, express emotions,solve problems collaboratively, and develop identities.

We want to provide an alternative to the input-output metaphor, one that reflects the larger contextof the omnipresence of learning and thinking dis-

tributed in the globalized world. The dialogical, eco-logical, and distributed perspective not only bringslearners into the world—where attunement takesplace reciprocally—but also views learners as dialog-ical beings (rather than autonomous singular individ-uals who conquer the “Wild West”) whose “personalexperience of voice is strictly related to the actual ex-perience of establishing a relationship with multipleaddressees, physically present or not” (Salgado 2007,p. 61) and as coagents with “co-affective sensory-kinaesthetic systems which spill out into the worldand the lives of others” (Stuart 2010, p. 307).

Best Practice. Design for action-based learning in SL isinformed by the work of teachers who dove in earlyand provided reflections on their experiences. As oneexperienced teacher notes, traditional language learn-ing practices often fail. He suggests, as have many oth-ers, that good design for learning in SL—design foraction-based learning—can be inspired by the learningwe associate with good computer games:

Many classroom activities do not work verywell in SL. They lead to groups of studentsstanding around in circles reading note cards.. . . The environment is so visually strong thatwe need to be able to use it, to create largespaces with motivating games. This will takeserious groups of people with serious SL skillsto be able to do.

One participant mentions the commonmisconception of people thinking of SL as agame. This is good because it is attractive tostudents who like games. But it’s also bad be-cause teachers generally think of SL as a gameand don’t take it seriously. . . .

Strong motivations in computer games(mastering tasks, preserving life, evading en-emies, etc) are lacking in SL. People will dothings over and over again in order to get tothe next stage of a game. This is one of thestrengths of gaming that could be built intolearning. (Stanley 2009, n.p.)

Differentiating an open-ended MUVE context like SLfrom an MMOG, in which problem-solving activitiesare embedded within the narrative of the game’s back-story, literature, and lore, is important. MMOGs, suchas World of Warcraft (WoW), which as of 2011 has aworldwide player community numbering 11.1 mil-lion (“World of Warcraft” 2011), may already serve



as rich contexts for languaging and language acquisi-tion by L2 learners. Moreover, games can be co-optedas contexts for designed language learning activities(Zheng and Newgarden forthcoming), capitalizing onthe gaming features that require players to coact asthey choose, plan, and complete quests; run instances(complete grouped quests in virtual world dungeonssuch as in WoW); compete in battles; or participate inorganized raids with guild members.

From Input/Output to Affordances/Languaging


A preset battery of needs analysis tests can suffice toprovide an initial assessment of a learner’s needs andgoals but might fail to capture the learner’s emergentneeds, goals, and values (Reed 1996; Hodges 2007a,2007b, 2009). The ecological concept of emergenceacknowledges learners’ agency. Learners actively seeksemiotic resources (affordances) to make sense of theworlds in which they interact. In this sense, languageis emergent because learners’ embodying of new semi-otic resources enables them to detect affordances thatthey could not previously detect. Thus, their needs,goals, and values-realizing dynamics change as theymove forward. The cycles of perception and actionenable the learner to detect increasingly subtle andincreasingly specific information in the environment.

Dialogical and ecological theories provide an al-ternative view of sense-making, one that is relevant tounderstanding learning in virtual worlds. “In the dial-ogist perspective, thinking or (cognition) is concernedwith sense-making in and of the world, in relation tothe world and with the help of communication, lan-guage and the use of artifacts” (Linell 2009, p. 41).However, when we visit university sites in SL, we of-ten see beautiful buildings and well-displayed Power-Point presentations. When we visit language learningislands, we sometimes see authentic-looking archi-tecture. And when we visit classrooms in SL, we mayeven see traditional desks and whiteboards. However,we see few places that directly invite visitors to engagein actions and interactions. NASA’s SL site, the BritishCouncil Island, SL English, and SL Chinese School areexceptions, to name a few, all of which are embeddedwith quests. Although we are aware of other islandsbuilt with game engines and infused with quest-likeactivities, our experience with SL has led us to con-clude that many educators conceptualize the virtualworld as a real world classroom; that is, as a space in

which a teacher must be present to direct, control,or scaffold the learning as if it were content from atextbook. Engagement with the environment is in-tensified by the presence of others. Being in a virtualspace, no matter how spectacular the scenery, may notbe much fun if it is lacking life. The experience canbe compared to that of a child discovering a new butempty playground: she is initially excited by the coolslides and climbing areas but then realizes that, with-out other kids with whom to play or without a built-inmechanism to invite interaction, the playground willnot remain fun for long.

But the presence of others—for example, nativespeakers of the language or other peers—cannot al-ways be counted upon when needed for languagelearning. Virtual worlds offer a solution. We can cre-ate environments for learning that are communityoriented and learner activated and that, at the sametime, lead to personally meaningful experiences with-out necessarily requiring the synchronous presenceof a teacher or other “real” people. The capstone oflearning that can be counted as dialogical is engage-ment in a project in which “self (or selves) and othersare involved in the plural” (Linell 2009, p. 89; empha-sis in original). In the communicative project, ratherthan individuals performing autonomous speech acts,“parties take mutually complementary contributions”(Linell 2009, p. 193).


Virtual worlds contrast dramatically with traditionalclassrooms. In a typical language classroom, four wallsenclose a space filled with chairs, tables or desks, awhiteboard, and perhaps some audiovisual equipmentand some learning materials posted on the walls. Amore high-tech classroom might have a projector, acomputer, or a Smart Board. For some L2 learners, par-ticularly those who are not living in a country wherethe target language is spoken, the classroom is wheremost language practice takes place. That teachersconfined to classrooms and to the limited resourcestherein have focused their SL efforts on bringing inauthentic language content (i.e., input) is easy to un-derstand. In terms of its affordances for learning, thetraditional classroom may have a limited “semioticbudget” (van Lier 2004). The L2 teacher faces the chal-lenge of providing not input but contextualized op-portunities for language practice that approximatewhat the learner will experience in a real life situation.



The dialogical view of language learning implies anadditional challenge for teachers: In the absence ofnative speakers of the L2, a teacher must convincelearners that they can learn from their interactionswith one another. Finally, because language teach-ers may work from a set curriculum or text, learnersmay have very low sense of authorship. This is notideal for learning, because experiences of authorship,whether actual or perceived, are embodied and emo-tional and, therefore, more memorable (Wegner andSparrow 2007).

In contrast, virtual worlds offer the opportunity toexperience language by whole body/avatar immersionand coaction. The learner enters an incredibly com-plex environment with rich meaning potentials, fullof museums, shops, restaurants, national parks, and soon. Diverse “others” are co-present in a virtual socialspace. In a highly populated world like SL, L2 learnersare likely to find entire communities of others usingthe target language while engaged in some kind oflearning, hobby, or other activity that interests them.Furthermore, because of the potential for creation inSL, any context can be built. Taken together, these twoaffordances suggest opportunities for situated learn-ing (participation in communities of practice) and thepotential for coaction in contexts that are relevant tostudents’ language learning goals.


Rather than building lecture halls, classrooms, orclassroom-bound activities, instructors ought to cre-ate affordances in the making of museums, shops, andrestaurants and ought to invite the learners’ activeparticipation rather than focusing on the “input” or“comprehensible input” that learners will receive. Thedual concepts of affordances and the zone of proximaldevelopment (ZPD) can help us recognize how the vir-tual world can expand our current view of learning.As a result, more language learners and educators willmore adequately embrace the power of virtual worlds(Thorne, Black, and Sykes 2009; Zheng et al. 2009).Van Lier expresses the defining features of affordancesin linguistic terms:

a) an affordance expresses a relationshipbetween a person and a linguistic expres-sion; it is action potential; it is a relationof possibility;

b) linguistic affordances are specified inthe linguistic expression, and available

to the active interlocutor (or addressee)who may pick up one or more of thoseaffordances as they are relevant at themoment;

c) the affordances picked up serve theagent—depending on his or herabilities—to promote further action andlead to higher and more successful levelsof interaction. (van Lier 2004, p. 95)

We need to bear in mind the importance of design-ing learning environments in which learners can pickup affordances both in and outside the ZPD. Gibson’s(1979) definition of affordances emphasizes that theconcept has neither objective nor subjective proper-ties. Affordances should always be dynamically cou-pled with effectivities, which are the agent’s aptitude,abilities, or needs. Affordances can become an actionpossibility only when agents are ready or have the ca-pacity to attend to them. Having the goal of designinglearning environments rather than orienting and se-quencing learning through task design can help uspay more attention to learners’ needs dynamically asthey perceive and act in the environment, becauselearners come with extensive knowledge, coactingtendencies, and histories of seeking good prospects(i.e., values). The designer/instructor’s job is to scaf-fold participation in the semiotically rich environ-ment, allowing learners to actively pick up affordancesand, to use Brown and Duguid’s (1996) description, tosteal the knowledge they need when they need it. Wecan become aware of the learner’s need for supportonly when we allow the learner to participate and en-gage in meaningful practice. “Scaffolding occurs whenplanned pedagogical action stops” (van Lier 2004,p. 162). By revisiting Gibson’s original definition of af-fordances, we confirm the inadequacy of the dualismof objectivity and subjectivity and of the separationof mind and body and body and world, as well as theconsequent perception of learning as an internal ac-tivity in the brain.

Current Practice. One example of the mediation oflearning in SL is the use of holodecks by many L2teachers. A holodeck is an SL construction or buildof a particular context or scene (a restaurant, a hospi-tal room, a child’s bedroom, etc.) that can be broughtinto existence (or “rezzed”) on demand. Holodeckscan allow for language activity and interactionswithin a specific context.



In June 2009, language teachers in the SL Ex-periments group held a contest to create and shareholodecks and associated learning activities. Thecreated scenes included several kinds of gardens, anItalian market, a Venezuelan market, a flea market,and a maze (Kern 2009b). The recommended activ-ities included identification of object names and lo-cating or moving objects; discussions about the ac-tivities that would take place in a particular scene inreal life; role-plays; and information-gap activities.With the exception of one suggestion to include tasksthat would require students to find, interact with, andcopy objects (this was in connection with the mazescene), teachers focused on facilitating learners’ explo-ration of content rather than designing for coactionand values-realization with and within the environ-ments. We can imagine alternative uses of holodecksin which dynamic assessments of where participants’conversations are leading result in participants be-ing “moved” on the spur of the moment from, say, akitchen to an Italian market. Unexpected momentslike this in which learners have to quickly assembleresources either at their disposal or from a historicaltime contingent upon certain situations would en-courage participants to exploit circumstances andimprovise by using expressions and actions to makesense with the “other” in coaction.

Best Practice. To support embodied learning, activi-ties should be designed so learners are invited to takeactions to explore and detect affordances in the exist-ing builds. Nik Peachey, an active blogger, freelancelearning technology consultant, and English as a sec-ond language (ESL) teacher recommends that teachersdesign outside of the classroom box and into the com-puter game-box. One of his ideas is to have students inSL create photographic stories. Students work togetherusing their avatars to create a sequence of images ofthe virtual world that tell a photo story. Students canenhance the images by using a word processor to adddialogue bubbles. This encourages students to collab-orate both in class and while they are in SL. Peachey’sidea is a good example of an authentic language-useactivity, one that takes advantage of the unique af-fordances of the virtual world (freedom to move andcollaborate, built-in camera, imaginative scenes, etc.)and also allows learners a great deal of agency andauthorship. Examples of other best practices includethe artful embedding of content, images, slides, textfiles, and so on into objects, artifacts, and holodecks

in the virtual environment so learners can activelyseek and pick up information by unpacking this con-tent. Grounded in theories of ecological psychologyand distributed cognition, the unpacking would alsoinvolve the distribution of tasks among communitymembers, changing the group’s cognition and lead-ing toward a goal state that is dynamic and nonlinear(Hutchins 1995) and involves way-finding (Hodges2007b).

The Dogme Language Teaching movement, gain-ing popularity among many ESL and SL educators,posits that learning should proceed from student-generated ideas, interests, and needs rather thanbe mediated through language learning materials.“Dogme classes are classes that are: 1. conversationdriven [languaging] 2. materials light and where3. there is a focus on emergent language” (“Dogmetheory” [n.d.]).7 Multiple learning trajectories areacknowledged and validated. This approach is moreholistic because it can take into account the chang-ing dynamics of learner intentions and the learner-environment interaction, as well as the experiences ofthe learner in different timescales and contexts thatimpact the here and now.

From Tasks to Learning Environments


Linell (2009) summarizes two ways of looking at thenature of language: (1) language as abstract objectsand rules; and (2) language as action. The first assumesthat language use can start out as linguistic expres-sions, typically sentences. Once their students areequipped with some key expressions, teachers situ-ate the learners in contrived contexts to produce con-versations that require the use of those expressions.However, Linell cautions, “many aspects of the de-tailed order of interactions cannot be imagined byarmchair reflections; they are discoverable in actualdata, but not imaginable” (Linell 2009, p. 273). Thatis, when our brain and body are actually coordinatedto take action and reciprocally interact with the en-vironment, language is embodied, it is “in the flesh”(Linell 2009, p. 148), in the living body, and it is dy-namic. “Changes in the physical context result inchanges in the nature and number of a particularword’s relationships with other phenomena consti-tutive of its environment” (Kravchenko 2007, p. 657).

The specific affordances in the environment thatarise from learners’ interactions cannot be imagined.



Furthermore, actions that change the environmentand respond to changes must be enacted. Task-basedresearch on learning activities, designed to produce aspecific set of linguistic or pragmatic outcomes, oftenoverlooks opportunities for learners to attune (1) tounexpected but relevant cues and (2) to affordancesfor adapting to unanticipated responses and events.

The notion of “language use” suggests that we firsthave language(s) at our disposal and then we start to“use” them (Linell 2009). The traditional notion mis-leads educators, especially language teachers, to thinkthat language use is “something peripheral and possi-bly epiphenomenal, the secondary use of a pre-givenlanguage system” (Linell 2009, p. 274). Kravchenko(2009) argues that cognitive linguistics involves struc-tural dynamics instead of a “code.” In this dynamicview of cognition, speech is a first-order construct,and written language, which is infused with culturalvalues, is a second-order construct. Speech and writ-ing exist in different consensual cognitive domainsthat regulate the functioning of human society asa third-order living system. Cowley conceptualizesthe relationship between first- and second-order lan-guage in a dynamic living system in which wordingsonly partially make up human modes of thinking andaction (2011):

Like art or photography, language links feel-ing with shared forms. Social actors integrateaffect and self-expression with wordingsthat display both judgments and modes ofthinking. We draw on second-order culturalconstructs or the naıve realist’s “words.” Oursensitivity to wordings develops as we learnfrom engaging with the world. We need relyneither on knowledge of a language systemnor of the things depicted. As with pictures,dialogue rests on perceptual skills that de-velop in the service of action. Thus, whereaslinguistic forms serve to describe language,bodily dynamics sustain coordination withpeople, objects, and events. Human activi-ties depend, only in part, on what we cometo utter, hear, see, and imagine as wordings.(p. 188)


Agents perceive and act in a world imbued with bothinvariants and variants. In language learning, learnersact on and interact with objects and cultural affects,

as well as with meaning potentials. The variants ofwords, grammar patterns, values, beliefs, tool use, andso on that are embedded in the virtual world envi-ronment can be discovered and detected by engagingwith text information embodied by nonplayer char-acters. These changes can also be discovered and de-tected by engaging in collaborative activities that giverise to coaction, such as coquesting or conversationswith other avatars. Coquesting usually involves twopeople focused on an object or an event as a triadicinteraction (Reed 1996). Coquesting carried out by aparty of three has different dynamics (Linell 2009).Two types of change—that discovered in text and thatdetected as a result of locomotion—create a new socialdynamic frame that involves dialogical interpretationof the environment. “The reciprocity characteristicof interaction is thus now extended even further andbecomes a sharing of the affordances of the environ-ment” (Reed 1996, p. 137).

The central tenet of an action-based curriculum,such as a project-based learning design, is that ofagency. When we view learners as agents who act andinteract in and with the environment, we do not putprimacy on what the learner can say or is provokedto say. Instead we place primacy on perception andaction. Language emerges when learners coordinateand cooperate. In a complex environment embed-ded with artfully designed instructional affordances,learners perceive, think, feel, act, and interact. Addi-tionally, virtual worlds afford agency and access tomultiple trajectories of participation. In many virtualworlds, open-endedness creates unpredictability andunexpected situations that push a language learner toattune quickly to patterns (invariants) and importantways of being (i.e., cultural norms) in order to con-tinue on a particular path or accomplish some goal.This kind of learning, which is critical to the devel-opment of an L2 learner’s adaptivity and flexibility,cannot be scripted.

As Cowley describes in a personal communica-tion, “Playing games in virtual worlds is social andnot reducible to program like routines (proceduresbased on ‘content’ that you ‘code’ or ‘receive’ froma teacher, book or person) . . . by playing, you copewith/exploit so-called ‘rules’, anticipation, appro-priacy and routines (i.e. the things that task-basedlearning prioritises).” Virtual environments such as SLand other popular MMOGs afford agency by requir-ing players to monitor and modulate actions as affor-dances in the environment are perceived and acted



upon. This is quite different from task-based learning,which is typically focused, controlled, and routinized.


Task-based language teaching, a pedagogy thatemerged from sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics,has been the dominant approach in L2 teaching sincethe late 1970s. The problem-solving nature and step-by-step organizational structure develop learners’intrinsic motivation and provide a guide for measur-ing learning goals.

This can be an effective way to help beginnersspeak out loud and practice fluency in carrying out atask. However, anyone who has spent years trying tolearn a second language would agree that the essentialproblem for a language learner is not how to perfecttheir fluency with prefabricated sentences; it is howto confidently and flexibly anticipate in the genreof social languages—for example, in a job interview.An interviewee needs to know how to demonstratea boastful yet humble attitude. The ability to projectan assertive yet caring disposition can be the key tolanding a job. For many students, especially studentsfrom Asia, being humble and caring is a natural andculturally valued disposition. But for an Asian studentor immigrant newly arrived in an English-speakingcountry to be able to function in a workplace, he orshe needs prolonged culturally sensitive guidance,persistent participation, repeated practice, and deepengagement in the community of practice in orderto become boastful and assertive while remaininghumble.

The debate over social or cognitive perspectivesin the SLA field has been building in the last decade.Sociocultural and language socialization theorieshave enriched our understanding of how people learnan L2 and have taken us beyond the input/outputmodel. Language classroom practice has shifted tostudent-centered activities; for example, pair workhas been researched extensively to discover howjoint work can benefit meaning and form acquisition(Ortega 2007) as well as co-construction of conver-sation (Ohta 1995). Task-based learning and infor-mation processing–based practices may provide for agreat deal of language practice in the classroom set-ting. However, we ought to look beyond the theoreti-cal differences and similarities of the psycholinguisticand sociocultural perspectives (Ellis 2000). We need toreconsider what skills a 21st-century learner (or lan-

guage learner) needs to survive, to contribute, and tobe creative and productive in a multilingual society.The question at hand may not be about proficiencyof target language and L2 identity but about how L2learners or social group members make meaning andsense through languaging or discursive multilingualtranslanguaging practices (Garcia 2009).8 Then lan-guage teaching and learning have to incorporate thesecond-order construct of the sociocultural values ofthe first language. The tension between values held inthe first language and expectations in the L2 environ-ment has to be recognized and addressed.

Needs assessment and goal-directed tasks are cru-cial for developing rich learning opportunities, but wesuggest a dynamic and reciprocal evaluation amongcommunity members. We advocate a community net-work where teacher- or student-centeredness is notpredefined but where the roles of all members areinstead in a constant flux and shifting on differenttimescales. To realize the dynamic and heterarchi-cal role of each member, the L2 learning communityought to design learning environments in which theneed for sequencing of tasks and static pretest needsanalysis are distributed among the emerging learn-ing trajectories and heterarchical practices across allcommunity participants, be they experts, students, orteachers. In this kind of learning environment in thevirtual world, affordances can be designed and em-bedded in a variety of activities, artifacts, buildings,and texts imbued with sociocultural meanings andvalues (Hutchins 1995; Reed 1996; Linell 2009), andaffordance networks (Barab and Roth 2006) can pro-vide opportunities for distributed meaning-makingand coaction to occur over a spatiotemporal scale. Inaddition to meaning-making on various learner trajec-tories, values-realizing and sensory experiences of thebody (enkinaesthesia) will play a key role in commu-nication and cognition (Hodges 2009; Stuart 2010).

A decade ago in the learning sciences, Bransford,Brown, and Cocking (1999) advised educators to de-sign learning environments with attention to thealignment of the learner, knowledge, assessment,and community-centeredness. This one-system ap-proach, elaborated by Brown and Campione (1996)to promote coordination of activities among commu-nity members inside and outside of the school, canshed light on best practices for L2 learning communi-ties. At the microscale, one-system views of languageas coordination of organism-environment (Gibson1979; Jarvilehto 1998) and brain-body-environment



as adaptive biosystem (Cowley 2009a) conform tothe notion of alignment and integration. Given thewell-researched concepts from both macro- andmicrolevels of social and biological coordination,those of us within the SLA community are obligatedto rethink language teaching based on segmentedpedagogies such as task-based, content-based, or evenproject-based learning. We need to approach the de-sign of learning environments in a way that acknowl-edges language as a complex system (Larsen-Freeman2007) and considers both the macro- and microscalesof L2 acquisition. The notion of designing learningenvironments underpins and frames our rethinkingof the concepts of coaction, affordances, languaging,co-construction, values-realizing, and enkinaesthesia.

Current Practice. The following describes one way SLcan be used as a tool to create task-based learningactivities:

What struck me last night, though, sittingon chairs on my verandah, with the treesblowing in the breeze and the light turned to“midday,” with a view of Serov’s “Girl withPeaches” visible through the windows, waswhat an ideal learning situation we were in—this really was tasked-based learning and weneeded language to ask for help, for confirma-tion, to request another demonstration or toget help when something had gone wrong.The fairly simple process we were attempt-ing did not have to be described with wordsalone, it could be demonstrated and a thirdparty could look at one’s own attempt andmake suggestions if things were going wrong.(Newsom 2008, n.p.)

When learners carry out a role-play activity in theclassroom or take part in the kind of “ideal learningsituation” in SL described above, semiotic resourcesare often shortchanged and opportunities to discoveror detect information available in the environmentare often overlooked. Linell writes, “[C]ontexts areoften treated as stable environments that are therebefore or independently of people’s actions and dis-courses” (Linell 2009, p. 36). If we seek only the op-portunities for confirmation, comprehension, andclarification during the rich interactions that can behad in SL, we are missing some of the important af-fordances of the virtual world for coaction and values-realizing. Many who are interested in the educational

value of games have already pointed out that a shiftfrom a transmission of knowledge perspective to atransactional learning perspective may be in order.“If we are to see a new set of possibilities for games aslearning environments, we need to shift our think-ing away from content specific learning objectivestoward thinking about games as systems that affordnew types of agency and new ways of looking at theworld” (Thomas and Brown 2009, p. 44).

One of the leading language educators in SL,Howard Vickers, extended the WebQuest conceptto the combined use of Web 2.0 tools and SL virtuallocations. Called a “SurReal Quest,” it includes a fi-nal student product such as a podcast or blog. Theidea of quests is not new. Quests are found in the folk-tales and literature of all cultures. They appear in sto-ries of heroic journeys that are full of difficulty andthe overcoming of obstacles. Quests figure promi-nently in online role-playing games such as WoW,EverQuest, and Quest Atlantis (QA, a successful gamedesigned for children ages 9–16), where they arenested in a folklore or backstory or in a larger en-vironment where social values and beliefs are em-bedded. In role-playing games, carefully designedquests allow heroes to shine and show the quali-ties that make them heroic. What is missing in task-based SurReal Quests is the folklore, the backstorythat constitutes the heart and soul of popular on-line role-playing games. This fundamental differ-ence may contribute to the underlying focus on task-based learning and the design of the learning environ-ment. The larger social context of the virtual worldnarrative is key to engagement and participation ina discourse. The narrative can effectively becomethe curriculum or text for the language learner. Thisnecessarily implies a different role for the languageteacher, one that departs from providing a sequencedlesson following the traditional “presentation,practice, use” model that is apparent in thefollowing passage: “The role of the language teacheris to ensure that practice leads to the actual develop-ment of the language skills, through guidance andselecting when to take time out, for example, fromthe podcasting process, to focus on some specific lan-guage skills that need strengthening” (Vickers 2007,n.p.). This passage illustrates a view typical of manyeducators: that focus on language skill developmentneeds to be separated from some other activity inwhich learners are engaged, whether it is creation ofa podcast or a WebQuest in SL. Nothing is wrong with



this approach, but the focus is still on the four skills.The fact that the teacher’s role is active both in andoutside the ZPD and that a podcast is produced as afinal product is extraordinary. Nonetheless, we call fora switch in focus from learning about the four skills tolearning to be and become, and from an individualisticbrain-centered mind to the emergent identity devel-opment associated with an embodied and social mind.This switch is not intended to negate the importanceof the four skills but instead to shift the emphasis tothe process of languaging in a community network,whereby language skills will be developed, becomingemergent and embodied in the learner as she or hemoves from peripheral to fuller participation in thetarget language and culture.

Best Practice. When I (Zheng 2009) designed action-based curriculum activities for absolute beginners inSL, I designed “scenarios” that scaffolded avatar-basedinteractions, such as finding your lost bag in a mall’slost-and-found office or being a go-between for twoof your friends. I found that although the learnersdid speak in the target language, sometimes in bro-ken form, they spoke in prefabricated language as ifthey were in the imagined environment. They werenot in the lost-and-found office, but they acted as ifthey were. The interaction was not “live,” not in theflesh. Through design-based methods and a new un-derstanding of some of the 10 characteristics of theecological approach to learning (relations, context,patterns and systems, emergence, quality, value, crit-icality, variability, diversity, and activity), redesignedquests provided for multiple interaction patterns andproblem-solving opportunities that allow questersto realize values of caring, having fun, and translan-guaging (Zheng forthcoming).

Van Lier summarizes the ten characteristics of theecological approach to learning as follows:

1. Language as relationship between peo-ple and the world, affordance signals anopportunity for action

2. Context defines language, meaningemerges in a context

3. Patterns, not rules but “patterns thatconnect”

4. Emergence, not linear accumulationof objects, but transformation, growthand reorganization

5. Quality, not just quantity, quality com-bines intellect and affect, and yields ahigher level of consciousness

6. Value, overtly ethical and moral, em-bodying visions of self and identity.This concerns not just identity develop-ment, but actively constructing such areality [see also Lemke 2002]

7. Critical, oriented toward understandingand actively improving humanity in ahealthy world

8. Variability, seeing variation not as anuisance to be tied down and reduced,but as an indication of cultural andpersonal vitality

9. Diversity, the language to be learned(whether [first language] or L2) is pre-sented as one that is not one mono-lithic standardized code, but a collec-tion of dialects, genres and registers[see also Kravchenko 2007]

10. Activity, not object, but in the world;authorship, emotionally connected toaction and speech and to community.(Van Lier 2004, pp. 5–8)

Relatively new constructs used to explain learning invirtual learning environments can provide scientificevidence that language learning requires more than acontrolled, rule-governed, well-sequenced curriculum;it requires design of a learning environment wherelearners can participate, interact, select, and evaluatethe effect of language actions. By contrasting the eco-logical view of language learning with the cognitiveview, van Lier (2004) elaborates the concepts of affor-dances, negotiated action and interaction, scaffolding,and prolepsis, all of which can help us understandhow language learning actually happens in instruc-tional contexts that are characterized by the qualitiesin van Lier’s list.

From Learning about to Learning to Be/Become


Sociocultural theories emphasize that the develop-ment of identity occurs simultaneously with lan-guage learning (Ricento 2005). Situated learning andlegitimate peripheral participation (LPP) (Lave andWenger 1991) provide another perspective on the lan-guage learner that has relevance for considering how



teaching and learning in virtual worlds can differ fromthat in a classroom. In LPP, a newcomer gains accessto a community and is able to participate, initially onthe periphery, but over time more fully as he or sheshares the values and goals of the community of prac-tice (CoP), negotiates an identity in relation to theCoP, and learns the shared repertoire of the commu-nity’s social practices through interaction with othermembers. Online communities in virtual worlds ex-emplify this model.

Communities can become insular, however.Language is therefore important for developing bridg-ing relationships, ones that extend our social net-works and awareness and prevent us from havinga narrow perspective (Baldry and Thibault 2005;Steinkuehler 2006). MMOGs (like WoW) serve as so-cial spaces where languaging is the main activity incoactive play that realizes values such as diversity(e.g., in terms of choices related to avatar identity andskills), cooperation (e.g., in activities requiring team-work and coordination of behavior), and achievement(e.g., in reaching an expert level at some profession,such as herbalism, leatherworking, or inscription).This relates directly to Hodges’s ecological perspec-tive on language, in which language serves the threemain functions of “seeking good prospects, caring,and wayfinding” (Hodges 2007a, p. 153).

In an MMOG, as in SL and other 3D multiplayerworlds, an ever co-present “other” influences our per-ceiving and acting as we carry out our intentions, re-alize values, and shape our identity (Hodges 2007a,2007b; Linell 2009; Cowley and Zheng 2011). Suc-cessful play in many MMOGs depends heavily onawareness of alterity and on a player’s ability to takethe multiple perspectives of the other players in heror his party in order to coact effectively. The notionof “other” also implies that individual human iden-tity “can be realized only within interactions andwithin the symmetries that reflect the dynamics ofthe ecosystem as a whole” (Hodges 2007b, p. 601). Inthis sense, identity development is a reciprocal, reflex-ive, and distributed meaning-making process in whichour effectivities and skills are deeply connected withthe affordances of the environment.

Identity shaping and L2 learning are ongoing pro-cesses, not static indexical values (Pable, Hass, andChriste 2010). Through languaging (first-order activ-ities), learners align their sociocultural dispositionswith the attitudes, beliefs, and values of particularcommunities (second-order norms). Lemke (2002)

explains how we become our village as we learn howto coordinate our behavior with diverse, heteroge-neous others. Our complex individual collections ofidentities (who we are in our many different roles andinteractions) are forged across timescales. The essen-tial and persistent features of our identities over timecome through the experiences that are most mean-ingful to us, those that lead us to change our patternsof behavior and allow us to become a person. Regard-less of whether the language-learning goals of the L2learner are short or long term, casual or academic, theprocess of identity construction needs to take place ina way that allows the learner to develop the dialogi-cal and distributed agency necessary for languagingin the future contexts that matter. For example, if anEnglish learner plans to study in a graduate programin the United States, she or he not only will need tohave a certain level of language proficiency as mea-sured by a standardized test but will need to be ableto participate in class discussions and do so in a so-cially appropriate manner; for example, not speakingover someone, making eye contact with other stu-dents, and disagreeing without being confrontational.The languaging and ecological pragmatics are recip-rocally entrained in the perception and action systemof a learner’s life, and we should not expect that everyL2 learner will reach the stage where they are able tofully embody the L2. Instead, we should consider lan-guage development or human beings’ sense-makingon a continuum where perception becomes increas-ingly attuned to finer and subtler details (Gibson1979).

What role can teachers play in helping learnersto be members of a community where experienceswill lead to changes in behavior and languaging ca-pacities? We need to start by paying more attentionto languaging behaviors and allow them to be dis-covered by students in authentic contexts that ex-tend well beyond one or two class periods. We needto provide opportunities for learners to access com-munities and social networks that matter to them sothat they can engage with the specialized language ofdomains and attune to their particular social and cul-tural norms. Furthermore, we need to allow for learnerdevelopment of an L2 voice that will continue to shapethe community and be shaped by it. This sense of“becoming” is neverending; it is a processual life event(Ames and Hall 2003). Finally, we need to cultivatea learning environment in which translanguagingbetween first, second, and even third languages is a



norm. By doing so, we respect distributed meaning-making shaped by coaction.


SL language learners have access to many existingcommunities of practice and social networks. Myriadinterest groups exist, and activities are ongoing in theworld at all times. Teachers can encourage or designfor learning that will connect students with CoPswhere English is used to coordinate group activitiessuch as building, machinima, discussions of academictopics, and creating a business. We can also considerSL itself as a CoP in which the L2 learner can movefrom newcomer (newbie avatar with no inventory) tofull participant (owner of land, builder of new objects,active member of SL groups).

Steinkuehler describes how the intermeshed pro-cesses we call languaging, constructing understand-ing, shaping identity, and coaction take place withinthe discourse community of an MMOG:

Through participation in a Discourse commu-nity, an individual comes to understand theworld (and themselves) from the perspectiveof that community. Thus, semantic interpre-tation is taken as part of what people do in thelived-in world; it arises through interactionwith social and material resources in the con-text of a community with its own participantstructures, values, and goals. (Steinkuehler2006, p. 40)

When learners engage in languaging practices inthe virtual world—creating art, playing a sport, act-ing in a play, or writing a news story—they have theopportunity to develop not only the dispositions asso-ciated with these activities but also the nonordinary,domain-specific languages of people who do thesethings in the real world. Applying our belief that coac-tion changes both virtual and real world effectivities,we see virtual worlds affording rich contexts for learn-ers to engage in domain-specific languaging, therebydeveloping dispositions suited to particular profes-sional, vocational, or academic pursuits. Dispositionsdeveloped through coacting in virtual world activi-ties are available in the real world to increase the po-tential for participation in new situations and acrosstime.

Those without experience in heavily populatedvirtual worlds might have difficulty fully appreciating

the depth and complexity of the cultures that havebeen co-constructed by active, diverse online commu-nities. Even after nearly a year of playing WoW, thesecond author is still a relative “noob,” a newcomerfor whom the game seems to offer infinite choicesfor play and learning. Similarly, the SL virtual worldis never the same place from one visit to the next; itpresents a constantly changing array of opportunitiesfor exploring culture, attending conferences, expe-riencing new music, playing games, socializing in avariety of contexts, building and creating new places(e.g., islands, schools), and learning languages. Theseare places shaped by participatory cultures in whichagency has free rein.

What Needs to be Rethought?

Those of us who have studied a second language out-side of the country or area where it is used have expe-rienced the disconnect between what we know aboutthe language and our ability to use it effectively. This“inert knowledge” problem (Whitehead 1929) canbe traced to several factors, not least of which are thedecontextualized, linear, segmented approaches tolanguage instruction that still predominate. As wecome to view language as a social, dialogical prac-tice, we need to reexamine traditional classroomapproaches.

Much of L2 teaching involves teaching about thetarget language. Language programs teach the skillsof reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Teacherscommonly teach grammar from textbooks that arebased on a linear progression from “beginner” to more“advanced” structures. While most grammar practiceprescribed within these texts has a communicativefocus, the contexts may not be meaningful to learn-ers, may not afford agency, or may not provide for thejust-in-time learning students need in the situationsthat matter to them most. More recent theories of L2acquisition affirm that it is a nonlinear, emergent pro-cess (Larsen-Freeman 2003; van Lier 2004). A focus onteaching about language in a structured sequence oreven in task-based modules is the result of the codeview; it directs the learner’s attention to rules and ver-bal forms that seem to exist separately from the con-texts in which they are useful.

Recognizing that languaging is something peopledo together is a critical first step in rethinking lan-guage learning in terms of “learning to be/become”rather than “learning about.” Mastery of language



occurs as learners participate in a discourse; that is,as they actively engage with communities of practiceand social networks.

Current Practice. The SL environment includes affor-dances that promote development of the learner’sidentity in relation to use of the target language.In the following passage, Graham Stanley, who hasworked for the British Council on the development ofthe SL teen grid, highlights some of the key pointsmentioned during an interview with Nik Peacheyabout teaching English in the virtual world.

STRENGTHS

SL is a good social platform

Nik thinks that SL regulars get strangely at-tached to their avatars. This attachment issomething that puts SL on a different levelfrom 2D Web. He also mentioned that if hehas met someone in SL, he feels he has metthem “on a deeper level” than those he hasonly talked to on Skype or exchanged emailswith. The 3D aspect of SL is very important.SL provides a feeling of sociability.

Space ownership

It is easy to develop an identification of own-ership of space. You can’t build [the] samekind of attachment/sense of ownership to aMoodle space, for example. The discussionthen moved onto [sic] using virtual worldswith teens and pre-teens. Nik suggests provid-ing space for students—it will motivate themmore if they can take ownership of the spaceand will provide a stronger pull to keep theminterested as “virtual residents.”

Extra-curricular activities such as chat groups,drama groups, etc.

There is a great opportunity to do this inSL and work on projects such as machin-ima/theatre in order to motivate studentsto use language in a real way. (Stanley 2009,n.p.)

Best Practice. Thomas and Brown (2009) suggest vir-tual worlds matter because through our imaginativeactivities and play within and connected to them weare creating culture. If we look to create a new culture

of language teaching and learning practices throughembodying learners in a virtual space, we have to ac-cept that many familiar practices will not be sustain-able in virtual worlds. Our goal should be to capitalizeon the features of virtual worlds that offer new pos-sibilities for learners to engage in languaging ratherthan merely to be learning about the L2. We believevirtual environments offer unique and abundant af-fordances for the negotiation of identity that emergefrom embodied avatar-enabled experiences with theL2 (Zheng forthcoming). The following happy passagefrom Antonella Berriolo’s blog illustrates how cultureis created through the imagination networks of virtualworld participants while also affirming how learningin SL can be a form of play. Berriolo (aka Anna Bego-nia) is an Italian teacher who has been active in SLlanguage teaching groups. (Spellings reflect the origi-nal blog posting.)

Lately on Tuesday I’m always happy andsmiling. The reason of my happyness andsmiliness is that on Monday night I meet withsome . . . yes I can call them friend by now,to do activities using the Italian language. Ido not like to call it a class because there is noteaching aim in it, but I limit myself to cre-ate a situation where people can comunicatein a meaningful way in a foreign language.And it works. It works thanks to the wonder-ful people who Italianizzano with me andwho understand that this is like going backto childhood, when we played together pre-tending that we were knights and princessesand we built imaginary houses or played withdolls. (Berriolo 2009, n.p.)

An ideal kind of virtual world learning (where learnersare interacting with others while engaged in authenticactivities) can afford development of a sense of self inrelation to the society—the ultimate goal of partici-pation. Barab and Duffy (2000) distinguish this fromproblem-based learning or learning in practice fieldswhere the task is typically bounded by the classroomcontext. In most cases, classroom learning will prob-ably not connect the learner to real practitioners, sothe identity developed is in relation to the classroomcommunity and not to the larger society. This is theidea of the commodification of learning—learningfor “exchange value” instead of learning in order toparticipate more fully in some real world community.Barab and Duffy call for design that recognizes the



socially, mutually constitutive individ-ual/environment aspect of learning: “This is a con-siderable shift from the design of practice fields—ashift from a focus on the activity of an individual in acollaborative environment to a focus on the connec-tions one has with the community and the patternsof participation in the community” (Barab and Duffy2000, p. 26).

Research Agenda

When we view language as situated, embodied, andculturally distributed (Cowley 2011), we must an-swer a new set of research questions using researchmethods that address multimodality (Kress and vanLeeuwen 2001; Baldry and Thibault 2005; Jewitt2006). Delineating such methods for conducting re-search in virtual worlds is beyond the scope of thisarticle. (See Zheng (forthcoming) and Zheng and New-garden (forthcoming) for how multimodal analysisreveals deep levels and rich diversity of communica-tive activities in virtual worlds.)

Pursuing the following research questions mighthelp us better understand the affordances of virtualworlds for L2 acquisition and the implications for ped-agogy and instruction:

• How do we design learning environments thatsupport beginners’ engagement in agentic learn-ing (Zheng et al. 2009)?

• What do design and learning look like when lan-guage is conceived of as being for the coordina-tion of action with others?

• How do we care and keep the conversation goingin virtual worlds (Zheng forthcoming)?

• How do embodiment and co-presence in a virtualworld support language acquisition?

• How can virtual world technologies support LPPand engagement in communities of practice (Laveand Wenger 1991) that are relevant to a languagelearner’s goals?

• To what extent do virtual environments provideresources for identity development and exper-imentation for L2 learners (Thorne, Black, andSykes 2009)?

• How does identity experimentation vary basedon the type of virtual environment, learning task,visual representation of avatar, and opportunitiesfor user behavior (Thorne, Black and Sykes 2009)?

• How do the affordances of learning with technol-ogy affect the role of teachers?

• How does a teacher scaffold or support learningwithin a semiotic resource system?

• How does a teacher use technologies to createclass communities that support learner engage-ment and leverage the ZPD?

• Are different forms of knowledge, attitudes, be-haviors, and skills needed for teaching in virtualworlds? What are these? What should L2 teacher-training programs look like?

• What assessment measures fit with virtual worldlearning?

Conclusion

Virtual worlds are metaverses where avatars interactwith one another and with software agents in a three-dimensional space that exists as a metaphor for thereal world. Literal representations of the world we livein can be found or created in a metaverse. SL, withits powerful game engine and design grammar of cre-ativity, is one of the online worlds most commonlyoccupied by educators and researchers and is coinhab-ited by residents of all sorts. In some respects, theirexperience compares with that of the Puritans whocame to America on the Mayflower or that of the pio-neers who led the movement to the Wild West. Theycleared land, built shelters, and farmed and hunted forfood in ways that were familiar. Computer pioneersstructured software with the same architecture theirfamiliar physical filing systems used. What did the pi-oneers of SL do? They built based on what they werefamiliar with in the real world.

But does the virtual world have to duplicate real-ity? When we treat the virtual world as the real world,what do we gain or miss? One of the evident gains isbeing able to visit places that time and resources pre-vent us from physically traveling to in real life. Thismight be one reason why many real life cities, places,and people have been recreated in SL or why manyuniversities have built their virtual campus to resem-ble their real campus. However, we should considerwhat makes our experience of traveling to a campusor a museum impressive, memorable, and rewarding.What is meaningful is, for example, talking to a help-ful and friendly registrar who happens to come fromthe same town and really likes how the small campusoperates, likes the small classroom size, the weather,the community, and so on. When we visit a museumfor the first time, meaningful connections can makeour visit to the new place more memorable.



Technology is not a panacea for language learn-ing, and not all technologies have affordances forlearners to perceive, to think, to feel, to care, to actand interact. However, artfully designed virtual worldscan afford situated, embodied, and culturally dis-tributed language learning. In order for this to hap-pen, we need to rethink SLA theories and pedago-gies. With this article we hope to partially challengethe centralist individualist view of language and, byproviding a meaningful context—the world of SL oran MMOG like WoW—invite colleagues, designers,researchers, and instructors to take a deeper look atvirtual worlds. The virtual can be real. Virtual realitycan be emotional and at the same time exist as a semi-otic and resource-rich environment with and withinwhich agents can act, coordinate, cooperate, and learnto be.

By examining some of the current practices inSL using forward-thinking perspectives of humanlearning and sense-making theories, we have intro-duced a new concept, coaction—it challenges “ac-quisition” views of language because it depends onnot the world in the head but a local environment:how a distributed system makes use of parties initiallytreated as context. By embodying human capacitiesfor coaction in avatars, we connect our body and theworld, our physical existence and virtual being, ourselves and others, and our mind (thinking) with ourheart (feelings). In coaction, we engage in languagingto make meaning and realize values through dis-tributed yet connected multiple beings and the world.Furthermore, we can infer that in the larger sociocul-tural context of virtual worlds like SL or WoW, car-ing is what sustains us as learners, teachers, players,and even lurkers, as we coact dynamically to createthe world on the fly and simultaneously create a newidentity for ourselves. Long’s (1980) three Cs (check-ing for comprehension, confirming, and requestingclarification) have endured for some time as essentialguidance for L2 teaching. In taking a DEEDS view oflanguage, we suggest that the language teacher andlearner “guidebook” has room for a second set of Cs:caring, coaction, and community of being/becoming.These reflect the essence of languaging and should bebeating strongly at the heart of virtual world instruc-tional design and language learning.

Acknowledgments

We thank Stephen Cowley for his two rounds of thoughtfuland forward-thinking comments. His insightful perspec-

tive on distributed language and his passionate persuasionon coaction led us to examine several issues from alternateperspectives. His mindful and careful interaction with usinspired our cowriting and distributed meaning making pro-cess. We also thank Graham Crookes, Michael F. Young, andthe journal’s anonymous reviewers for their constructivefeedback and encouragement. Finally, we wish to make clearour respect for the work of the teachers and educators fromwhose blogs we have drawn examples. We have referencedblog entries as if they were published articles with the inten-tion of illustrating current beliefs and practices rather thanto criticize or praise the individual authors.

Notes

1. This view shares similarities with discursive psychol-ogy and constructionism but is different than both.Discursive psychology (DP) emerged to promote dis-course analysis as “something more than just method”(Edwards 2004, p. 259). DP uses discourse and conver-sation analytic techniques to look at “talk’s business”or how human beings manage “motive and intent,agency and involvement” in the business of talking(Edwards 2004, p. 262). In contrast, ecological psychol-ogy (EP) “puts” human beings back in the ecosystems.The driving force for meaning-making and values-realizing is not possessed by individuals (or locatedin the human brain) but is interdependent with theecosystem in which the conversation partners and otheraffordances function in flux. In such systems, mean-ings are sought and values are realized. This aligns witha view of language development as emergent and oflanguage as a complex, self-organizing system (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008). Language dynamics—that is, language in embodied real time interaction—isour primary interest. How individuals attend to andmanipulate language structures is also important forlearning but by itself cannot account for how we be-come persons. Despite the similarities, including atten-tion to the role of language in social coordination, thegoals of DP put it on a different plane of ontology thanEP and a dynamic, embodied, embedded, distributed,and situated (DEEDS) view of language. The ecologi-cal way of looking at conversing can shed light on thedistinctions between constructionism and distributedapproaches, as can the Distributed Language Group’sstance on timescales. The discursive constructionisttalks about the “constructive” sense of discourse, argu-ing that assemblages of words, grammar, metaphors,repertoires, and so on put together and stabilize ver-sions of the world, of actions and events (Potter andHepburn 2007). The actions and events in the con-structionist’s ontological framework are second-orderlanguage constructs, however. Researchers and theirsubjects talk “about” actions rather than treating con-versing “on the physical and the pragmatic” (Hodges2009). The ecological account of ongoing agency isfirst-order coordination of “unforced actions that ac-tivate environmental potentials that constitute a real



physical-social field that constrains and guides theongoing activity” (Hodges 2009, p. 634). The differ-ence again resides in the first-order versus second-orderdistinction.

2. In early home literacy practices in China, parents oftenhold their child’s hand to trace characters so the childfeels and responds at the same time she or he is learninghow to hold a pencil or a brush.

3. In stressing first-order languaging activities, we donot mean to deny that learners intentionally pick uplanguage structures and vocabulary in formally struc-tured classroom teaching. Rather, we prioritize actionand interaction that folds, enfolds, and unfolds learn-ing on multiple past, present, and future timescales. Wealso believe that in kinesthetic-like activities “affectiveintentional reciprocity” can be achieved among agents,objects, and environments (Stuart 2010).

4. Linell (2009) talks about how different built environ-ments, such as courtrooms, churches, and restaurants,afford different communicative activity types in whichthe meaning potential of certain words (e.g., testimo-nials) can take on very different connotational mean-ings. Depending on curricular goals, teachers can createprops and use content-rich texts to help L2 learnersdevelop coacting habits and behaviors.

5. Cowley (2010) traces to Charles Sanders Peirce, JamesJ. Gibson, and Daniel C. Dennett his use of “virtualpatterns” to reject language forms. He describes lan-guage not as an inner faculty that identifies and rep-resents forms but instead argues that social experi-ences give us brains that rely on bodily coordination.Verbal descriptions such as picture descriptions spec-ify more than we notice or take for granted; they areon the periphery of being perceived, yet they are notfully perceived. As human beings differentiate in-variants (pictured objects) in a depicted surface, wealso differentiate virtual patterns from language spo-ken and heard in the dynamics of coordinating withothers.

6. The Virtual Human Interaction Lab (http://vhil.stanford.edu/projects/) has developed avatars whosefacial features can bear a striking resemblance to theself. However, the embodiment is controlled by key-boards and is therefore not as direct as for our realhuman bodies.

7. For more information, see Meddings and Thornbury2009.

8. Garcia (2009) prefers the term translanguaging to code-switching because it includes a range of linguistic fea-tures and various modes of autonomous languages.

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Rethinking Language Learning: Virtual Worlds as a Catalyst for