VR - possibilities for use in tertiary language centres

This paper starts with an overview of how Virtual Reality (VR) has been used, and can be used, in language education. While the use of video technology combined with Virtual Reality is seen to be ground-breaking, the technology is actually quite mature and has already been used in language education. For example, Chen (2016) reports that Taiwanese tertiary students, when using an online 3D English VR learning program, improved their phonological, morphological, grammar and syntax knowledge, and virtual world learning assisted in the development of a more complex and higher level of thinking. A VR room has been created in a self-access language centre of a university in Hong Kong. This self-contained room contains a high-performance PC with HTC Vive headset and controllers. The paper will consider student usage patterns of this VR room and student opinions of VR as a learning tool for languages, and teacher perceptions of the VR room’s possible use by students as an independent learning tool and/or in their subjects. Qualitative data will be collected from interviews conducted with three groups of subjects: students who have used one of the applications in the VR room; students who have used the self-access centre but have not used the VR room; and language centre teachers. The paper aims to provide recommendations for a range of apps offered in university VR rooms so as to better cater for students who want to use VR to study independently, and more effectively target teachers who are interested in using the VR room to integrate VR apps into their teaching.