Second language learners’ Language ego
in the second life world
If “Real life” or “Second life” on screen is completely realized, I guess there are many ways we can utilize for teaching English. For example, assuming the feedback exchanged in the second life world is authentic enough, the students can practice English depending on situations. It will be very beneficial to protect the second language learners’ language ego. The language ego is the identity created from learning a language, and when learning a new language, we may have another language ego according to the new language’s socio and cultural registers. The characteristics of language ego include fragility, defensiveness and raised inhibitions.
In our discussion about teaching English as a second language, one of core issues are dealing with student’s anxieties and pedagogical approach to reduce them. Depending on students’ personalities, the affective levels could be very different. We learned that someone’s language ability does not reflect their intelligence, but students don’t know and often get overwhelmed in situations like correcting speech structure and plan an activity not to hurt students’ feelings. For thoses students, learning a second language in the virtual life could be very beneficial in that they don't need to be defensive or feel anxiety.
According to Rak (2009), “When we theorize the identity production in a world such as Second Life, then, we must assume that Second Life is a public which is made up of persons who have consistent identities.” However, whether it is consistent or inconsistent, to build and produce the identity requires some efforts. In reality, technology need to develop more to achieve our educational purpose. Once, I tried to pratice English with a virtual tutor, Mike.
If you read the text message exchanged between me and Mike, it is not comrephensible. The tutor, Mike is not reponding appropriately, so he is not able to teach literally. In my final thoughts, we still need to go a long way to realize the virtual education, but it is worthy to invest our resources to accomplish some achievement in the fields.
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