| Summary: | 碩士 === 華梵大學 === 外國語文學系碩士班 === 99 === Recently, there have been a growing number of research studies applying
digital game-based learning (DGBL) into English as a foreign language (EFL)
teaching. One of the examples is the “Second Life” (SL) virtual world in this study.
Motivation encourages students to learn new knowledge by themselves
(Prensky, 2005), however, in Taiwan, it has been reported that college students are less motivated to learn English as a foreign language (Chung, 2006). Therefore, in this study, the researcher used Flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991), designed tasks, applied online game “SL” in English teaching and used Cooperative Learning to attempt students’ English speaking motivation. Also, students gave feedback so that the researcher knew the defects which can be revised in the future.
In this study, 17 Taiwanese college English majors participated in this action research study as SL users. The teacher as the researcher designed and implemented an English learning lesson plan through it. Tasks in this lesson plan focused on not only English speaking but also reading and listening activities. Participants needed to participate in the tasks and presented their outcomes.
Data included a questionnaire, interviews, and documents. Based on the four
dimensions of the flow theory, the questionnaire was used to collect data responses. Interviews were used to gather participants’ comments by focus group and individual interviews. Documents were included students’ overall online, final exam feedback, and English presentation files. Three kinds of data including questionnaire, interviews, and documents were categorized and analyzed based on the flow theory, with triangulation techniques to clarify and strengthen research findings.
In this study, flow situations occurred in multiple layers to each student. Also, various difficulties might influence flow, such as demanding hardware requirements and sudden echoes which hindered communications when students were using microphones to speak English. Overall, participants did practice English speaking when the teacher asked them to complete the learning tasks, but they might acquire more “flow” if they could be offered more self-learning opportunities in SL. In sum, SL supported opportunities for EFL speaking.
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