Educators are now finding that teaching in virtual worlds such as Second Life is most effective when combined with real life activities. The 3D virtual world Second Life provides language learners with new opportunities for socially interactive learning, and when it is blended with other online teaching methods, language learning becomes a truly communicative, immersive, and practical experience.

Consider for example a lesson where students create a video or audio podcast using Second Life to conduct live interviews: the student then uses online texts, audio, and video to further accomplish the tasks while practicing speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills. "Students learn best when doing real work such as creating podcasts, brochures, or videos. Now we have a teaching methodology where students produce real work by communicating with real people in virtual worlds", says Howard Vickers, Director of Avatar Languages.

He adds, "The result is that language lessons mirror the way we use language in both social and work situations. They are more natural, communicative, engaging, and effective, which is increasingly what language learners are looking for". Pierre Moussy, a student at Avatar Languages who has recently created a podcast about Berlin as a part of his English classes, notes, "Podcasting has made me focus on all the languages areas I need to improve, like pronunciation, vocabulary, and fluency. It relates well to what you need in real life, and I'm now thinking to do something more directly related to my work".

In recent years, educational theorists have been calling for new teaching methods to reflect the importance of learning as a social activity and the need to develop a range of communication skills. "Second Life's social dimensions provide students with opportunities to develop a wider range of skills", says Andrés Guiloff, Rector of UNIACC University in Chile.


This has become especially important in workplace training, where we naturally use a mixture of communication styles, such as email, internet, phone, meetings, and written reports.

Second Life recently introduced voice capabilities, allowing its nine million member-residents to talk with each other in real-time. This has enabled educators to provide lessons that are more communicative. "The introduction of voice to Second Life really brings eLearning to life", says Howard Vickers. "This is a new era in distance education, where online learning is truly social and immersive."