Researchers

• Prof.dr. N.H. de Jong
• Paz Gonzalez - Co-PI
• Anna Zaffinelli - student assistant

To elicit speech for second language (L2) speaking research as well as for successful L2 education, we strive for authentic tasks. One way to make tasks more authentic would be to use VR or 360 immersion techniques. Using 360 techniques in tasks enhances the immersive nature as well as participant engagement, potentially leading to higher speech output and more natural speech production. The current project compares speech output from Dutch learners of French in secondary education in three conditions. Additionally, we ask about students' emotional and social engagement in the tasks in the different conditions.

Developing 360 immersive tasks is costly. If no differences are found between the three conditions, with respect to naturalness of speech and with respect to students’ emotional and social engagement, there may be less need for future research and educational purposes to develop such costly tasks.

The same tasks were used in three different conditions: 360 immersion, simple video, and a cartoon version. In total 19 duo’s (38 learners) performed the tasks to elicit speech in the three conditions. They also filled out the questionnaires to gather information on learner engagement. Analyses of speech will be carried out to investigate to what extent adding immersion to video’s leads to quantitatively and qualitatively different speech. For instance, do learners speak more if the same task was presented with the 360 environment, are there differences in intonation and turn-taking between the three conditions? Emotional and social learner engagement will be compared across  the three conditions.

• language learning
• speaking skills

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