UDC 37.013
Wang GuoLi
EI «Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno»
Scientific supervisor – T. V. Puzevich, Associate Professor of the Department of Translation and Intercultural Communication, Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno
USING VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY AS A MEANS OF IMPLEMENTING MULTIMODAL
APPROACH TO TEACHING ENGLISH
Introduction
This paper explores how to use Virtual reality (abbreviated as VR) technology to implement multimodal foreign language teaching within the framework of “Internet +”. It focuses on the goals and expectations of foreign language learners, as well as the goals that language teaching should achieve.
The COVID-19 outbreak has devastated economies, societies and education around the world. According to the official website of UNESCO, as of April 5, 2020, the outbreak has closed schools in 194 countries, leaving 1,598 million students unable to attend school. Subsequently, as of September 7, 2020, schools in some countries were gradually reopening as the epidemic slowed, but 869 million students were still out of school. The epidemic has changed the global education landscape, forcing education to move from offline to online, closing schools and introducing distance learning. Therefore, information technology has become an important pillar of global education boosting unprecedented opportunities for educational development. VR technology has been widely used in the field of education, and there are many positive cases and effective practice models both in China and abroad.
- China’s “Internet +” has entered a new era of high-quality and high-speed development
Human society is moving towards the 5G era, and a new generation of information technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, quantum science and artificial intelligence will trigger a new information technology revolution [2].
In the context of the rapid development of information technology in the world, China’s “Internet +” has entered a new stage of high-quality and high-speed development. On July 23, 2020, the 19th China Internet Conference hosted by the Internet Society of China (ISC) opened on the cloud and released the China Internet Development Report 2020 [2]. According to the Report, the number of Chinese netizens has reached 1,319 billion [1].
It is of profound practical significance for China’s “Internet +” to enter a new era of high-quality and high-speed development as it will create a new ecological environment for education development.
2.Virtual reality technology
VR technology is a new practical technology developed in the 20th century. It includes computer, electronic information and simulation technology, and its basic realization is to simulate virtual environment by computer so as to give people a sense of environmental immersion [3].
Virtual Reality is a computer multimedia system and a variety of real virtual technology interface combined to generate a three-dimensional virtual space on the computer. Through this computer virtual mode, virtual reality has all the sensory functions of human beings, such as hearing, vision, touch, taste, smell and other sensory systems, to create a multi-source information fusion of interactive three-dimensional dynamic landscape and entity behavior system simulation environment.
The implementation of multimodal English teaching with the help of VR technology can enable learners to conduct knowledge roaming in the virtual reality world, fully mobilize their vision, hearing, touch, etc., enhance learners’ learning interest in knowledge structure and skill operation, and effectively improve the learning effect. The mode of education has been transformed from the traditional mode of passive acceptance by learners to the learner-centered mode, which realizes the goal of learners’ independent exploration of knowledge.
3.The application of virtual reality in multimodal foreign language teaching
As an international language, English proficiency is one of the basic abilities and qualities of international talents. In 2018, the Ministry of Education released the English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools (2017 Edition), which set new requirements for the English curriculum for college students in the future and proposed the overall goal of foreign language proficiency for college students. The orientation of college English teaching in the new era, curriculum design, teaching mode, teaching methods, selection of teaching materials, curriculum evaluation and other aspects need to be planned and changed according to the actual situation. On the one hand, it should meet the national talent demand target; on the other hand, it should take into account the actual situation and needs of learners.
In Chinese colleges and universities, the ultimate goal of English teaching is to cultivate high-level talents with international consciousness and thinking, world-class knowledge structure, international vision and ability, and good at seizing opportunities and striving for initiative in global competition. This goal also encompasses achieving strong intercultural communication skills, the ability to carry out international activities independently, strong information use and processing skills. The traditional teaching mode cannot meet this demand, and it is urgent to introduce a new teaching mode that efficiently faces modern challenges in education. In this context, VR technology is adopted to implement multimodal teaching methods in English teaching based on “Internet +” to meet the realistic needs of interactive and immersive learning and better attain the goals and expectations of learners.
The prerequisite for language acquisition is adequate comprehensible input. English course is a compulsory public basic course in medical colleges and universities in China. With the continuous development of China’s medical undertakings, international exchanges are becoming more and more extensive, and the requirements for medical and health practitioners are becoming higher and higher. The development of English teaching in nursing programs is also affected by the uneven enrollment and the degree of learners’ acceptance. Therefore, in order to make learners more interested in learning English and learn English faster, teachers adopt multimodal teaching methods based on VR technology in English classroom teaching so as to provide learners with a highly-effective language learning environment and atmosphere. VR technology also enables to optimize teaching methods and improve learners’ awareness of autonomous learning.
VR technology is widely used in English classroom in Heilongjiang Nursing College. For instance, in nursing program, the teachers designed 10 aspects of nursing content, including registration, hospitalization, nursing evaluation, ward rounds, preoperative and postoperative care, psychological care, drug treatment, diet care, maternal care. In medical vocabulary teaching, the teachers use VR technology to simulate professional situations in which learners use professional words such as pneumonia and AIDS in virtual stories. Learners can immerse themselves in this situation through visual, auditory and tactile simulation so that learners can get rid of the restrictions of books through perceptual and rational cognition, give full play to the role of visual, auditory and tactile senses, and actively seek knowledge and information. The course content is closely related to real life. Through this interaction, learners’ interests can be improved, role playing and simulation learning can be carried out so that learners can master professional English vocabulary and use it to deal with the problems and tasks existing in daily medical work, thus strengthening the mastery of professional knowledge and skills.
A multimodal approach based on VR technology is also employed in teaching anatomy and other professional domains in English. The teachers use a computer to simulate the human body tissues and organs in the virtual space, let the students participate in the simulated operation, and feel the scalpel cutting into the human body muscle tissue, which enables students to grasp the operation main point quickly. In addition, surgeons can build a virtual model of a patient’s body before the operation and conduct an operation rehearsal in the virtual space, which can greatly improve the success rate of the operation and allow more patients to recover. The use of VR technology can help students create a vivid and lifelike learning environment so that students can enhance their memory through real feelings. Compared with passive indoctrination, the use of VR technology encourages independent learning and stimulates students’ interest in learning.
In addition, in order to organically integrate ideological and political education into English classroom teaching, the English teachers have carried out an effective practice of using VR technology to implement multimodal teaching. For example, the English teacher used VR technology to lead the learners to visit the Yu Weihan Memorial Hall in virtual practice. The Memorial Hall is located in Heilongjiang Nursing College (Beian Campus), and it commemorates Yu Weihan, a famous expert on cardiovascular and Keshan disease, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who passed away on November 17, 2010. Starting in 1953, Yu Weihan led his team to effectively curb the Keshan disease, which ravaged 120 million people in 309 counties in 16 provinces, including Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces, and gave countless patients a second chance at life.
Within the scope of the standardization of epidemic prevention and control, teachers need to explore how to make use of modern information technology to immerse learners in the process of visiting the Memorial and feel the power of example. First, the teacher recorded a video explaining the Memorial hall in English, and then created a virtual memorial hall using VR technology. In the actual teaching, learners were guided to visit the VR memorial hall through intelligent interactive teaching equipment. Through intuitive and interactive teaching, learners can better feel the spirit of Yu Weihan, which not only strengthens the learning experience, but also improves the practical effect and achieves the sharing of high-quality educational resources. On the basis of the VR memorial hall experience, the teacher flipped the classroom in order to achieve the unity of teacher subjectivity and student subjectivity, attaining the teaching goal of learner-centered mode.
Virtual reality is considered to be the highest level of multimedia application. In English teaching through VR technology, the teacher provides a real life learning experience that stimulates all senses and contributes to generating a strong interest in exploration and learning.
4.The significance of applying VR technology to multimodal foreign language teaching
VR multimodal English teaching realizes the learning effect across virtual space and real space, and promotes the mutual balance and education sharing of English education resources across schools, majors and regions. Enhancing the sense of presence and interaction in English online teaching provides a new way to solve the key problem of lack of sense of presence, which has long puzzled English online education.
Foreign language education in colleges and universities is an important process to cultivate citizens’ foreign language proficiency. It should not only meet the developmental needs of learners’ psychology and emotional attitude, but also meet the needs of learners’ future prospective, employment, survival and development, as well as the needs of national economic building and scientific and technological development for personnel training.
English is not a mother tongue in China. In the actual teaching process, it causes many obstacles to learners’ learning and application. For a long time, in practical English teaching, the “the teacher speaks, the learner listens” approach has become the main form of college English classroom teaching. Although this teaching method has the advantages of great ability and short time to impart knowledge, its use as the only form of teaching organization restricts the comprehensive development of language activities and the improvement of language competence of learners. Teachers attach great importance to the teaching of English language knowledge, but ignore the cultivation of language knowledge, which makes learners passive recipients of language knowledge, contributes to the loss of confidence in English learning, and restricts the improvement and development of their ability to use English. Moreover, the background knowledge of learners, the ability of information processing, the type of teaching materials, the difficulty of teaching content and so on will affect the teaching effect.
Therefore, English teaching should emphasize learners’ learning interest, life experience and cognitive level, and advocate experiential, practical, participatory, cooperative, interactive learning methods and multimodal teaching methods [4]. Multimodal English teaching using the VR technology is suitable for the education media and education application scenario devices. It transforms a traditional classroom into an intelligent classroom where learners can express emotions, improve the relationship between learners and the learning environment, enhance learners’ interest in language learning. Using VR technology to implement multimode teaching methods in English classroom and realize the sharing of educational resources is conducive to the realization of course objectives and the vision of cultivating all-round international talents.
Conclusion
In the future, due to the changes in teaching and learning modes, the cognition of both teachers and learners will change. Within the framework of «Internet +», English courses are no longer restricted by regions. Through the intelligent teaching environment of “Internet of things” and the implementation of multimodal teaching methods such as VR technology, the classroom content from thousands of miles away can be synchronized so as to realize the descending of high-quality educational resources and make the children in the mountains enjoy high-quality education. Therefore, the application of VR technology in multimodal foreign language teaching has multiple humanistic and social potential.
Bibliographic list
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