“While in China, you are forced to rely on your knowledge of the language to get yourself around,” she said. “The classroom helps you learn the characters, but knowing characters is completely different than conversing with somebody.”

But now researchers at MSU’s Confucius Institute have designed a community in the virtual world to combine classroom teaching with simulated real-world experiences.

The institute bought an island in Second Life, a computer-generated virtual world, and have been designing the island for a year in order to mimic China.

According to its Web site, Second Life is “a 3d online digital world imagined and created by its residents.”

The institute received money from The Office of Chinese Language Council International in Beijing to teach Chinese to English speakers.

“Second Life gives you (an) opportunity to immerse yourself in this Chinese environment,” said Chun Lai, an associate professor at MSU’s College of Education.

“It resembles the culture and country where people are speaking the language — it’s something you can’t get in a foreign- language classroom.”

Every detail of the island — from the statues to the small, ceramic tea cups to the line of dragon charms on a curve-shaped roof — creates a Chinese environment, said Ming Li, an educational technology doctoral student.

Li is using the Second Life Chinese island for the first time to teach three students the language at St. Clair Community College.

In the program, everyone has a unique avatar, or virtual person, and can talk to others using audio conferencing.

“When we have discussions in Second Life, it’s just like having class in real life,” Li said.

A student can interact with all the other students, native speakers and artifacts in the world, Lai said. If a student clicked on the sofa, it would say the word for sofa in Chinese.

“To that extent, it is even better than the real world,” Lai said.

To celebrate the Chinese Moon Festival, which is a holiday similar to the American Thanksgiving, Chinese guests were invited to the island.

“We had discussion about the traditions of the Moon Festival and the students had to speak in Chinese and use what they had learned in the past week,” Lai said.

Second Life can provide immediate feedback they can receive either from a native speaker or from the virtual world, said Dongping Zheng, an assistant professor in the Confucius Institute and the College of Education. It provides students hands-on experience in using language.

“In the virtual world like Second Life, it really gives students the opportunity for a social presence,” Zheng said. “Students from different areas can come into the course and have a feeling of community building.”

To keep control of who can be on the island, all people have to be added into the Chinese island group by the Confucius Institute.

“The island is open to everyone, but if you are not in the group you are restricted and can only go to certain places on the island,” Li said.

Working online

Not only are new forms of technology being used to learn Chinese, but other foreign languages at MSU are becoming more online-based.

In an upper-level German course, one-third of regular classroom time has been logged online.

Angelika Kraemer, a graduate student who is co-teaching the course, said the Center for Language Education and Research has created a program that allows instructors to record questions online, encouraging students to respond.

Students are writing blogs in connection with the course topics, and all their readings are online.

“With this program, I can track better what they are doing and how they are progressing,” Kraemer said. “And now students don’t have to share the 80 minutes of classroom time we used to have every week — they can respond to the questions on their own time.”

Students said it is harder than normal foreign language classes, Kraemer said. But they also said it was more beneficial.

“With the online component, students are less intimidated to speak into a computer than in front of a class,” Kraemer said.

Technology norms

In recent weeks, a study was conducted in the College of Arts & Letters to find out what types of technology MSU foreign language students use in their personal lives, their beliefs about technology for educational purposes and what types of technology are currently being used in their language and nonlanguage classes.

Paula Winke, the head researcher for the survey, said technology can enhance a language class if it is used properly.

“I find that students at MSU are very familiar with and expect their teachers to use e-mail, PowerPoint and online class management systems like Angel,” she said. “These tools can help teachers organize class and can help them provide information to their students in a more cost-efficient and expedient way.”

Winke said she finds these tools in many classes and the question is what new technological advances will become part of everyday classroom teaching.

“(Professors) might be hosting office hours virtually in programs such as Second Life or maybe having all oral exams conducted through the Internet,” Winke said.