This chapter describes a small-scale pilot study in which participants in the experimental group learned how to write Japanese kanji characters within an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) graffiti simulator (the Kingspray Graffiti Simulator on the Oculus Rift VR system). In comparing the experimental group to the non-VR control group in the context…

The aim of this study was to discover what potential benefits of Virtual Reality (VR) use students perceived in comparison to smartphone use in an English-speaking activity. Two surveys were conducted over three interventions in order to ascertain these student perceptions. Ten students enrolled in an elective English class at a Japanese…

What do students expect before starting a Virtual Exchange (VE) with peers? Are their initial expectations mirrored in the final outcomes they perceive after the VE experience? Or, else, do students acknowledge benefits and acquired skills which they did not expect at first? This study draws on qualitative and quantitative data collected across a…

More and more Japanese students are studying abroad and the Japanese government has set a target of 180,000 students to study abroad each year by 2020 and is providing financial assistance to students to help achieve this goal. However, is financial assistance enough? Surveys conducted with students from a national education-focused university in…

Since 2000, I have been coordinating a web based virtual exchange project, Project Ibunka. Ibunka means different cultures in Japanese. It aims to provide opportunities of authentic interaction among EFL/ESL learners all over the world. The project has been giving English language learners from various countries opportunities to use English for…

The emergence of virtual worlds and simulation games provide ample opportunities for developing cultural competence by offering a visual, contextual, immersive, and interactive experience. Learners can benefit from contextual interactions and develop cultural competencies by fulfilling quests or exploring the environment. However, most of the…

This chapter presents the "Better French Living Project" (BFLP), which was started in 2014 in the French section of the Newcastle University School of Modern Languages (SML) with a view to respond to second-year students' feedback, promote independent learning amongst them, and assist in their year-abroad preparation by developing their…

This pilot study delivers a preliminary report on students' attitudes toward Virtual Reality Assisted Language Learning (VRALL). Learners (N=22) participated in a VRALL lesson and then completed a post-experience survey. Virtual Reality (VR) technology allows for learning experiences that increasingly remove geographic limitations to foreign…

This study proposes a virtual reality platform for language learners to practice a Target Language (TL) and develop cross-cultural competencies through interaction with peers or an AI-agent (limited scope), followed by a scheme for engaging learners to envision their conversations by disclosing their thoughts, reasoning, feelings, and…

This text presents the results of surveys and interviews of Former Students (FSs) who have taken part in a teacher education course that began in 2004 (still on-going) and that includes Virtual Exchange (VE). The study aimed to look at the impact of two teacher education courses, imparted collaboratively between geographically-distanced…

We developed a story creation platform that allows for collaborative content creation in a 3D environment by utilizing avatars, animations, objects, and backgrounds. Our story envisioning platform provides a shared virtual space that promotes collaborative interaction for story construction, involving a high degree of learner input and control. It…

Globalization and the digitalization of our lives have made it impossible to avoid (inter)cultural encounters. In the traditional classroom environment, students are expected to juggle a myriad of choices almost simultaneously. Factors like grammar, pronunciation, word choice, etc. are all important assessment factors to consider when looking at…

This paper describes the project 'ITALO (MyLearning Log)', introduced as part of the Institution-Wide Language Programme (IWLP) at the University of Manchester. The project aimed to encourage student engagement with the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), monitor usage and effectiveness of the resources deployed, and develop learner autonomy.…

In this UniCollaboration plenary session, Barbara Moser-Mercer speaks on setting up education classrooms in refugee camps with University of Geneva students. She starts off with a video which speaks to the virtual exchange idea and how students from the University of Geneva are working together with students in Macau and how that could be…

The Evaluating and Upscaling Telecollaborative Teacher Education (EVALUATE) project was a European policy experiment funded by Erasmus+ between 2017 and 2019. The EVALUATE consortium trained teacher trainers and organised virtual exchanges which involved over 1,000 student teachers at over 34 initial teacher education institutions in Europe and…