Effects of VR and Online Public Speaking Lessons on Students’ Speaking Skills more

Fri, Apr 29, 09:00-Tue, May 31, 23:55 Asia/Seoul

Benefits of VR for English education such as increasing engagement (Hu-Au & Lee, 2017), reducing affective filter (Schwienhorst, 2020) and public speaking anxiety (Godefridi et al., 2021), and raising students’ motivation (Tai, Chen, & Todd, 2020) are reported. Thirteen students in a two-week online study abroad program offered by a university in the U.S. to improve public speaking and acquire ICT knowledge took three VR lessons before the program. In this presentation, I will present the results of pre-and post-TOEIC speaking tests before the VR lessons and the public speaking lessons in the program, an analysis of pre-and post-questionnaires developed with reference to Can-do descriptors of CEFR Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020), and an analysis of students’ journals about the VR and the public speaking lessons. The possibility of integrating VR lessons prior to online or onsite study abroad programs will also be discussed.