Computer Assisted Language Learning

ISSN: 0958-8221 (Print) 1744-3210 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ncal20

Effects of using mobile-based virtual reality on

Chinese L2 students’ oral proficiency

Ying Xie, Yan Chen & Lan Hui Ryder

To cite this article: Ying Xie, Yan Chen & Lan Hui Ryder (2019): Effects of using mobile-based
virtual reality on Chinese L2 students’ oral proficiency, Computer Assisted Language Learning,
DOI: 10.1080/09588221.2019.1604551

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1604551

Published online: 20 May 2019.

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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING
https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1604551

Effects of using mobile-based virtual reality on

Chinese L2 students’ oral proficiency
Ying Xiea , Yan Chenb and Lan Hui Ryderc
a
Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment, Northern Illinois
University, DeKalb, IL, USA; bUniversity of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA; cDepartment
of World Languages & Cultures, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Northern Illinois
University, DeKalb, IL, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article reports a mixed-methods study about using vir- VR tools; second language
tual reality (VR) tools (Google Cardboard and Expeditions) learning; oral proficiency;
for developing students’ oral proficiency in learning role play in VR
Chinese as a second language. Twelve students role-played
as tour guides for six locations throughout a semester: four
of them with VR tools and two without. Data collection
included oral presentations recorded at four different times
of the semester (for Presentations 1, 3, 4, and 6), class
observations, participants’ reflection papers, and individual
interviews at the end of the semester. Results revealed that
the content and vocabulary of participants’ oral presenta-
tions when using VR tools scored statistically significantly
higher than when not using VR tools. Qualitative data
showed that participants felt that VR tools facilitated prep-
aration and encouraged active learning.

Introduction
The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach emphasizes
that language learning occurs through intensive interactions in and max-
imum use of the target language (Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Turnbull, 2001).
Specifically to achieve fluent and accurate oral proficiency, a sufficient
amount of practice is needed. Some of the recent research attempts to
promote L2 oral proficiency examined the effects of synchronous com-
puter-based chats (Payne & Ross, 2005), web-based voice virtual environ-
ments (Ockey, Gu, & Keehner, 2017), flipped classroom (Wang, An, &
Wright, 2018), digital storytelling (Kim, 2014), and CALL system with
speech technology (Strik, Cornillie, Colpaert, van Doremalen, &
Cucchiarini, 2009). Other researchers (Cheng, Zhan, & Tsai, 2010;
Peterson, 2001) advocate the use of authentic contexts for creating social

CONTACT Ying Xie yxie@niu.edu

ß 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 Y. XIE ET AL.

interactions to promote language production, and communication to

enhance language acquisition in foreign language settings.

Virtual reality versus virtual world

Recently, virtual world (VW) and virtual reality (VR) tools started to
appear in various learning settings (Dickey, 2005; Lin & Lan, 2015). Xie
(2010) differentiated the two: VW is a virtual space actualized by com-
puters where users are represented as avatars and can virtually interact
with other avatars. In contrast, VR replaces the real world with a simu-
lated one or a replica of the real world, providing users with visual, and
sometimes auditory and tactile senses of the simulation so as to create a
sense of immersion or being there. However, a VR environment typically
does not support interpersonal interaction.
Social cognitivists endorsed the use of these technology tools as an
alternative to the real-life settings and a new area of study of CLT
emerged, referred to as VR assisted language learning. Von der Emde,
Schneider, and Kotter (2001) identified authentic communication and
content as one of the biggest pedagogical benefits of using VR or VW in
foreign language learning. In the field of second language learning, the
use of virtual environments sprouted. Most of the studies employed web-
based VW tools, especially Second Life (e.g., Ho, Rappa, & Chee 2009;
Jauregi, Canto, De Graaff, Koenraad, & Moonen, 2011; Liang, 2012;
Liou, 2012, Melchor-Couto, 2017; Wehner, Gump, & Downey, 2011).
Yet, applications of mobile, head-mounted virtual reality tools in lan-
guage learning settings are still scant.

Theoretical framework
In the attempt to explain the learning processes, Dalgarno and Lee
(2010) created a model of learning in three-dimensional (3D) virtual
environments (VE), recognizing two unique features as representational
fidelity and high degrees of learner interactions.
Most recently, based on the Information Processing theory (Atkinson
& Shiffrin, 1968) and the Embodied Cognition theory (Varela,
Thompson, & Rosch, 2017), Ladendorf, Schneider, and Xie (2019) estab-
lished the Hypothetical Model of Immersive Cognition (HMIC). The key
principles of the hypothetical model denote that the VR tools create an
immersive sense of presence by activating visual and motor channels and
tricking the brain into believing physical stimuli is present. Since objects
in the space immediately surrounding a person’s body are processed in a
more thorough and complex manner (Holmes & Spence, 2004), the
 COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 3

strong sense of presence offered by VR tools could dramatically reduce

the perceived distance of the objects and prompt the brain to activate
the schema in multiple sensory so as to enhance the learning experience.

VR tools in research
The field has seen a rise of research studies about VR tools recently. Due
to the versatile nature of the technology, VR has been used as training
tools (Desai, Desai, Ajmera, & Mehta, 2014; Le, Pedro, & Park, 2015), a
treatment tool for learning in affective domains, such as empathy, pub-
lic-speaking anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (Ahn et al., 2016;
Anderson, Zimand, Hodges, & Rothbaum, 2005; Parsons & Rizzo, 2008;
Passig, Eden, & Heled, 2007; Rizzo et al., 2010), and on a number of sci-
ence and engineering subjects (Bassanino et al., 2010; Lisichenko, 2015;
Merchant et al., 2012).
Among these newly available tools, Google Cardboard turns any
Android or Apple mobile phone into a head-mounted virtual reality
viewer. The Cardboard device is made of curved lenses that split the
phone’s screen and give viewers the feeling of physically being in a spe-
cific location. Google Expeditions, the newly released app that works
with Google Cardboard, takes viewers to multiple locations around the
world. Viewers use the Cardboard and mobile device to transport them-
selves to different environments. The viewer controls movements in a
360-degree pattern. The viewer provides an up-close and personal view
of the specific landmark, city or environment.
The latest studies conducted by Lee, Sergueeva, Catangui, and
Kandaurova (2017) and Rupp et al. (2016) only found that students’
interest in VR did not lead to improved learning. Both of the studies
used the VR tools for a relatively short period of time. Studies using VR
tools for an extended duration or for oral language learning are rare.

Research questions
The present study aimed to explore the potential of VR tools for a
semester-long L2 course by answering the following questions:

1. How did participants’ Chinese oral proficiency (as exhibited in their

presentations) change over time?
2. Did the use of mobile-based VR tools affect participants’ Chinese oral
proficiency?

H0: Participants’ Chinese oral proficiency exhibited in their pre-
sentations when using VR tools will be similar to that when not
using VR.
4 Y. XIE ET AL.

Ha: Participants’ Chinese oral proficiency exhibited in their pre-

sentations when using VR tools will be better to that when not
using VR.
3. What were the students’ perceptions of using Google Cardboard and
Expedition in their language learning activities?

Materials and methods

The study employed the sequential explanatory mixed-methods design
(Creswell, 2007). Participants’ oral presentations were first analyzed
quantitatively, and then qualitative data were analyzed to substantiate
and explain the quantitative findings.

Participants
Twelve students (four females and eight males) enrolled in the advanced
Chinese course at a state university in the United States participated in
the study (10 English-native speakers, 2 Chinese heritage learners). They
all majored in non-language disciplines, such as Computer Science,
International Relations, Psychology, Nursing, French, and Business. Eight
participants had briefly studied in China before. The majority of the par-
ticipants had taken 3-4 Chinese courses at the university level.
Participants reported that on average, they spent 1.29 hours every day on
Chinese learning, mainly for pleasure, reading, writing, Internet brows-
ing, TV watching, and music.

Procedure
During the first week of the class, the instructor and the research assist-
ant demonstrated the use of Google Cardboard and Google Expedition.
The instructor provided a list of 12 topics (famous attractions in China)
for students to vote on. Students’ selected places included a university
campus, the Great Wall, Xi’an, Guilin, Beijing, Jiuzhaigou. Two topics
were randomly chosen to be presented by using traditional meth-
ods (PowerPoint).
Starting from Week 2, participants were randomly paired for each of
the six presentation topics so that no two participants worked together
on more than one topic. For every two weeks, all dyads were asked to
thoroughly study the same location and present to the rest of the class in
Chinese as ‘tour guides’. Although the overall location or topic was the
same for all participants in any given week, they were free to choose any
points of interests of the same location for their presentations. The infor-
mation about the attractions on Google Expedition was in English.
 COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 5

Participants were encouraged to look for and use any additional informa-
tion in either English or Chinese for their presentations.
The VR tools were used for Presentations 2, 3, 4, and 5 while
PowerPoint was used for Presentations 1 and 6 for comparison purposes.
When the VR tools were employed, the presenters had complete control
and directed the other students to look toward specific areas they were
presenting on. As a requirement of serving as ‘tour guides’, participants
were asked to only point to or use pictures without textual information
when presenting. To make sure that the variety of the topics was not a
confounding variable, participants were asked to rate the difficulty of dif-
ferent topics on a scale of 1 (easiest) to 5 (most difficult). Comparison of
repeated measures using a nonparametric Friedman’s test showed that
there was no statistical difference among participants’ average ratings of
the difficulty levels for the four topics (v2 (3)¼3.56, p ¼ 0.35 > 0.05).
Data collection included audio-recorded oral presentations, class obser-
vations of all six presentations, two reflection papers (after Presentations
1 and 5), and individual interviews at the end of the semester.

Data analysis
An Oral Proficiency Rubric adapted from two separate scales was used
to code participants’ presentations (Padilla & Sung, 1999; Wu, Marek, &
Chen, 2013; see Appendix A). This adapted rubric, independent of the
language under examination, evaluates oral proficiency into dimensions
of content, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Two
experts in Chinese language, also the co-authors of this paper, first dis-
cussed the coding scheme and reached a common understanding of the
rubric. Then they graded one set of recorded presentations separately (12
oral presentations). Even though the presentation was conducted in pairs,
each participant was graded individually and received a unique score
based on his or her own part of the presentations. The inter-rater reli-
ability (Cohen’s Kappa) were 0.79 (content), 0.88 (fluency), 0.83 (vocabu-
lary), 0.88 (pronunciation), 1.00 (grammar), and 0.91 (ICC for total
score). Then both experts graded the rest of the presentations separately
and the average ratings were used for data analysis.
To answer the first research question about the effect of time on par-
ticipants’ oral proficiency, a within-subjects experimental design and cor-
responding analysis was employed to increase statistical power and
reduce the impact of between subject variability. Five nonparametric
Friedman’s ANOVAs on the five dimensions were performed with
Wilcoxon signed-rank tests as post-hoc analyses when necessary. A
6 Y. XIE ET AL.

repeated-measure ANOVA was performed for the total scores for their
oral presentations.
For the second research question about the effect of VR tools on partici-
pants’ oral proficiency, a dependent-sample t-test on six pairs (for five
dimensions and the total score) was performed between (1) the averages of
Presentations 1 and 6 and (2) the averages of Presentations 3 and 4. These
presentations were selected to eliminate the possible threats to internal val-
idity introduced by variables such as time, order and participants’ maturity.
Participants’ reflection papers, and individual interviews with all 12
participants were transcribed and analyzed by using an interpretive quali-
tative data analysis approach to provide further and possible explanations
to the findings of the quantitative analysis (Creswell, 2007). According to
Elliot and Timulak (2005), an interpretive analysis method is appropriate
when the research focus is to explain why the phenomenon could pos-
sibly come about and how it evolves over time.

Results
Change of participants’ oral presentations over time
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and results from the repeated
measure analyses of participants’ oral presentations over time. Figure 1
shows the changes of the five dimensions over time.
Friedman’s tests showed two statistically significant differences in par-
ticipants’ content and vocabulary of their oral presentations over time.
Post-hoc analyses with Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with Bonferroni cor-
rections were conducted for the content and vocabulary dimensions to
identify statistically significant differences over time (see Table 2).
The mean score for participants’ content of their presentations (±SD)
was 3.25 (0.62) for the first PPT-based presentation as the baseline, 4.08
(0.67) for Presentation 3, 3.8 (0.57) for Presentation 4, and 3.33 (0.49)
for Presentation 6. Four statistically significant differences were found:
(a) between Presentation 3 and the baseline (Z¼ 2.43, p ¼ 0.02); (b)
between Presentation 4 and the baseline (Z¼ 2.65, p ¼ 0.01); (c)
between Presentations 6 and 3 (Z¼ 2.46, p ¼ 0.01); and (d) between
Presentations 6 and 4 (Z¼ 2.36, p ¼ 0.01).
The mean for participants’ vocabulary score of their presentations
(±SD) was 2.83 (0.83) for the first PPT-based presentation as the baseline,
3.50 (0.52) for Presentation 3, 3.41 (0.67) for Presentation 4, and 3.17
(0.72) for Presentation 6. Three statistically significant differences were
found: (a) between Presentation 3 and the baseline (Z¼ 2.31, p ¼ 0.02);
(b) between Presentation 4 and the baseline (Z¼ 2.65, p ¼ 0.01); and
(c) between Presentation 6 and the baseline (Z¼ 2.00, p ¼ 0.05).
Table 1. Descriptive statistics, Friedman’s ANOVAs, and repeated measure analyses of participants’ oral presentations over time.
Presentation 1 M Presentation 3 M Presentation 4 M Presentation 6 M
Outcome (SD) (No VR) (SD) (With VR) (SD) (With VR) (SD) (No VR) N F or v2 df p
Content 3.25 (0.62) 4.08 (0.67) 3.83 (0.57) 3.33 (0.49) 12 16.97 (v2) 3 0.001
Fluency 3.17 (0.71) 3.25 (0.75) 3.41 (1.16) 3.41 (1.16) 12 3.86 (v2) 3 0.28
Vocabulary 2.83 (0.83) 3.50 (0.52) 3.41 (0.67) 3.17 (.72) 12 13.03 (v2) 3 0.01
Pronunciation 3.25 (1.05) 3.25 (0.87) 3.25 (1.05) 3.17 (1.11) 12 1.00 (v2) 3 0.80
Grammar 3.33 (0.77) 3.17 (0.71) 3.17 (0.83) 3.17 (0.83) 12 2.00 (v2) 3 0.57
Total 15.83 (3.61) 17.25 (3.07) 17.08 (3.91) 16.25 (3.91) 12 3.36 (F) 1.57 0.07


p < 0.05.
Mauchly’s test of sphericity was statistically significant, indicating that the assumption of sphericity had been violated, v2(5)¼17.580, p ¼ 0.004. As a result, the Greenhouse–Geisser
correction is reported here.
COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING
7
8 Y. XIE ET AL.

Figure 1. Repeated measures on five dimensions of participants’ oral presentation.

Table 2. Pair-wise post-hoc analysis of the content and vocabulary dimensions of partici-
pants’ oral presentation.
Outcome dimension (I) Presentation (J) Presentation Z (J  I) p
Content 1 3 2.43a 0.02
4 2.65a 0.01
6 0.58a 0.56
3 4 1.34b 0.18
6 2.46b 0.01
4 6 2.34b 0.01
Vocabulary 1 3 2.31a 0.02
4 2.65a 0.01
6 2.00a 0.04
3 4 0.58b 0.56
6 1.41b 0.16
4 6 1.73b 0.08
a
Based on negative ranks.
b

Based on positive ranks.
p < 0.05.

Effects of VR tools
A dependent-sample t test was conducted on six pairs (for five dimen-
sions and the total score) between (1) the averages of Presentations 1
and 6 and (2) the averages of Presentations 3 and 4. Three statistically
significant differences were found, as shown in Table 3.
In general, participants’ content, vocabulary and total scores when
using VR tools scored statistically significantly higher than when not using
VR tools whereas the other dimensions including fluency, pronunciation
and grammar scored similarly with or without these tools. In addition, the
effect sizes (Cohen’s d) for all three statistically significant differences were
relatively large (for content: 1.24; vocabulary: 0.85; and total: 0.79). As a
result, the null hypothesis for the second research question was rejected.
 COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 9

Table 3. Descriptive statistics, t-test, and effect size for participants’ oral presentation.
Without VR With VR
(Presentations 1 (Presentations 3
and 6) and 4)
Outcome M SD M SD N t Cohen’s d p
Content 3.29 0.49 3.96 0.54 12 4.30 1.24 0.001
Fluency 3.29 0.91 3.33 0.93 12 0.56 0.16 0.59
Vocabulary 3.00 0.74 3.46 0.54 12 2.93 0.85 0.014
Pronunciation 3.21 1.07 3.24 0.94 12 0.56 0.16 0.59
Grammar 3.25 0.75 3.17 0.75 12 0.80 0.23 0.44
Total 16.04 3.72 17.17 3.36 12 2.72 0.79 0.02

p < 0.05.

The qualitative analysis results about participants’ perceptions of the

VR tools are presented in the discussion section below. These results
provide explanations for and substantiate the interpretations of the quan-
titative data (Creswell, 2007).

Discussions and implications

Effect of VR tools on content and vocabulary
Quantitative data showed that the content and vocabulary of the partici-
pants’ presentations when using the VR tools were statistically signifi-
cantly better than when VR tools were not used. Qualitative analyses
revealed several factors might have contributed to the difference.

First, VR tools facilitated presentation preparation

Reflection papers of most participants showed that they spent about the
same amount of time (2–3 hours) to prepare for each presentation (VR
or PPT). Because Google Expedition provided many points of interests
and information about them, participants found them useful when pre-
paring for the presentations. For example, Florence compared the VR
tool with PowerPoint in terms of presentation preparation. She stated,
It was a relief not to have to create a presentation from scratch (regarding to
PowerPoint). You don’t have to do your own presentation. It saves time so your
sole focus is creating the script, memorizing, and presenting. It gives you time to
think when you are looking for the next spot you are talking about.

Henry also liked the detailed information provided on the apps. He

said, ‘It helped to take more time to learn about each place before making
the presentation’.
Edward mentioned that he translated the materials presented in the
app in his presentations, ‘The Google Expedition was a decent tool to use
– it provided a topic and materials to translate’. Participants mentioned
that when preparing PPT presentations, they searched for materials
10 Y. XIE ET AL.

online and translated their findings into Chinese. Comparing the need to
translate the materials they found on search engines, they expressed
more preference to the VR tool. Gladys explained,
(when preparing for PPT), if you are not familiar with the place, you Google it,
and pick up the pics popped up, it makes me more nervous, because I never
know if it is accurate. I had to spend lots of time just to make sure …

Preparing the oral presentations with the VR apps offered more reli-
able information-enriched learning opportunities for these participants.
As a result, it seemed that preparing for PPT presentations could be
more challenging and time-demanding than for VR-supported
presentations.
The chosen topics were real-life places in China. They were not only
learning the language itself but also learning about the culture, and the
latter inevitably brought out newer content and vocabulary. As
David mentioned,
From these projects, I learned about places I did not know existed, such as Guilin
or Jiuzhaigou. I learned about their rich histories. In cases like Beijing, I learned
about the modernity in those cities, such as the CCTV headquarters

The built-in information available on Google Expeditions greatly fos-

tered participants’ explorations and inquires about the related content
and expanded their vocabularies.

Second, VR tools brought real-life objects into close proximity and encour-
aged active learning
One advantage that most participants agreed was that the VR tools cre-
ated an immersive sense of being present in the scene. For example,
Larry stated,
Google Expedition interested me in these projects because I get to see a 360 view
of the area that I am presenting, whereas if you Google image the place. I might
just be seeing a far-away screenshot of it instead of looking directly. Almost as if I
am there.

The vivid and realistic representations on the VR tools encouraged

active discovery. Kyle mentioned that he never been to Guilin before but
it was an enjoyable experiences to research about the place, and to figure
out why it was a popular tourist spot for foreigners and Chinese natives.
He said,
I learned more about the historical aspects of China and how they have affected
the modern word because they are still relevant to the lives of the people there.
The many national parks, world heritage lands, and reserves are a big part of the
culture that makes China unique. I love it
 COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 11

Gladys stated, ‘It was easier because the tools make it more fun to learn
it. Easier to because we had to actively look for, find, and point to a spot’.
According to Holmes and Spence (2004), objects within the space
immediately surrounding the body are processed in more modalities of
sensory information whereas objects in extrapersonal spaces (far away
for the body to directly interact with) can only be perceived through a
limited number of senses. Further, the HMIC proposed by Ladendorf
et al. (2019) posits that the life-like visual stimuli offered by the VR tools
could possibly create an immersive sense of presence, so as to trigger the
brain to activate schema to process information in multisensory repre-
sentations. As a result, participants paid more attention to the details to
the objects virtually brought to their close proximity. David corrobo-
rated, ‘Using these tools did spark an interest in learning about these pla-
ces, seeing that, one could explain in detail about a location while seeing
it right before you’.

Third, the unknown piqued participants’ interest

As discussed above, the multiple modality of information on the app and
the illusive adjacency of the objects facilitated participants to discover
unknown information about the content. In turn, the unknown informa-
tion motivated them to seek additional content on the topic. For
example, Iris discussed how she found talking points for her own
presentation,
When I saw a really cool picture or cool fact on it, I decided to include it or latch
on it and go from there. When I saw something that was interesting or something
that we didn’t know about before … we didn’t know many details (about the Great
Wall) like some towers were for generals only … When I saw something I don’t
know, I started by using the descriptions provided by the app, and then I would
search more on the Internet if I needed more information about it … Sometimes,
I searched in many sites, including the blogs of those who had gone there before,
trying to find what I was looking for.

Her reflection not only showed that these VR tools encouraged active
learning but, to a great extent, promoted in-depth and extensive scrutiny
about the topic of interest.
Similarly, Amy commented, ‘The topics themselves were interesting. The
areas such as Guilin did get difficult only because I was not familiar with
nature-like words. It was interesting learning key facts in each section and
discovering a bit of history’. Generally, the immersive capability of the
VR tools might have allowed the participants to relatively easily identify
their knowledge gaps. The attractive, vivid, and real-life presentations of
the scenes through these tools inspired further explorations. These
12 Y. XIE ET AL.

inquiries into the unknowns naturally increased participants’ vocabularies

and enriched the contents of their presentation.
These VR tools afforded immersion into the scenes and the require-
ment of serving virtual tutor guides supported the CLT approach, where
the target language was maximally used in authentic contexts. This find-
ing was also corroborated by Peterson’s (2010) study where students’
vocabulary acquisition was greatly facilitated through the use of massive
multiplayer online role-playing games.

Effect on pronunciation and fluency

The quantitative analyses showed that throughout a semester’s practice,
participants’ pronunciation and fluency stayed stable throughout all pre-
sentations. This finding was consistent with many previous studies. For
example, Bongaerts, Van Summeren, Planken, and Schils (1997) suggested
that after a certain biological period of time, it would be extremely diffi-
cult to achieve an authentic pronunciation or fluency unless they receive a
large amount of input from native speakers. These two aspects of foreign
language learning usually remain unaffected when one enters adulthood
so that it could take many years of extensive practice to improve.
In this advanced Chinese class, participants were required to use a
conversation style for their presentations and reading from a written
script was prohibited. For Presentations 3 and 4, although participants
employed a more sophisticated repertoire of vocabularies and presented
richer content, the fluency of their oral presentations was not noticeably
affected. Instead, Figure 1 showed that participants’ fluency when pre-
senting the topics slightly improved over time, although the growth was
not statistically significant between any two data collection points.
Previous research had shown that foreign language fluency could be
affected by many factors. Yoshimura and MacWhinney (2007) pointed
out that as the number of practice trials increased, learners’ speech flu-
ency would gradually increase. Similarly, Wang et al. (2018) found the
improvement of novice learners’ L2 fluency was largely associated with
the students’ time investment in speaking the language in and outside of
the class. This finding probably implied that participants might have
spent more time studying and practice presenting on the topics when
using VR tools so that they could become more familiar with the con-
tent. This finding was also substantiated by participants’ reflections. For
example, Amy mentioned one of the benefits of using the VR tools,
with these tools, you don’t have to create your own presentations. It was very
good in a fact that you don’t have to sit down and create your own presentation
so it gave you more time to study your presentation and try to memorize it or
perfect your presentation
 COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 13

When preparing for PPT presentation, as Gladys mentioned earlier,

they needed to spend plenty of time searching for information and veri-
fying its accuracy. Consequently, they might not have as much time to
practice their presentations.
In addition, Kormos and Pr
efontaine (2017) recently cautioned task-
related anxiety as one of important affective factors influencing the flu-
ency of second language speech tasks. Roed (2003) and Melchor-Couto
(2017) found virtual environments reduced students’ anxiety levels when
orally communicating in a foreign language because such environments
seemed to cultivate a stress-free atmosphere. Participants in this current
study also attested that after they become used to the devices, the use of
VR tools helped reduced their presentation anxiety because they felt the
audiences were looking at the scenery through the Google viewers and
their attention was shifted. Bruce reflected,
For PowerPoint, all eyes are on you. With these tools, you have a cardboard to
distract and you also know what you are talking about … having the audience
being distracted, you feel a bit more relaxed when you go up there.

In addition, using these tools provided them extra time and space
to relax during the presentations as Jason noticed, ‘It [using these
tools] gives you time to think when you are looking for the next spot
you are talking about’. Similarly, Henry commented, ‘I was not ner-
vous. The tour gave a slight buffer or pause so presenters could find
their words’. Since participants’ anxiety level decreased, their oral flu-
ency was not negatively affected by expanding the lexicon of their
presentations.
A third factor that could have explained why participants managed to
maintain their oral fluency when using newer vocabulary was the avail-
ability of both visual and verbal information on the VR tool during their
talk. For example, Jason mentioned,
The tool gave us a visual assistance to what we were talking about. When I was
talking about the archery hole on the great wall. I simply pointed out them on the
picture and said, ‘look, those are the archery holes’ instead of using a different
PowerPoint for your presentation.

Correspondingly, Amy reflected,

In the first PowerPoint presentation, I messed it up because what I was showing
on my slides were different from what I was talking about. I didn’t find it out
until some time later. So the whole presentation was messed up. With Google
Expedition, I couldn’t mess up because the title is already there. There’s no way
that you can mess it up.

The visual and verbal information not only contextualized their talking
points (Hadley & Reiken, 1993) but also served mental cues for their
14 Y. XIE ET AL.

working memory so as to maintain continuity of their oral discourses

(Payne & Ross, 2005).

Participants’ grammar
Surprisingly, the level of participants’ grammar use slightly dropped after
the first presentation and remained equable for the other three presenta-
tions. The average score of participants’ grammar of their presentations
was roughly three out of five. According to the rubric, most presenta-
tions revealed ‘a limited ability to utilize a few complex constructions,
though not always successfully. Other incorrect uses parts of speech and
noticeable grammatical errors persist which may make meaning ambigu-
ous’ (see Appendix A). It showed that although the participants were in
this relatively advanced Chinese class, their grammar skills were still rela-
tively elementary. The grammar rules still need to be taught to them.
In the book, Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar,
Huang (1998) discussed the generative theory of Universal Grammar and
linguistic typology and analyzed the grammatical constructions of a var-
iety of Chinese sentences. Although the sub-theories of grammar is
beyond the discussions of this paper, the underlying principle is that
grammar consists of descriptive or interpretive rule components that
interact with one another to form the complicated meaning in language.
Likewise, Canale and Swain (1980) view grammatical use as one compo-
nent of communicative competence, which was defined as an amalgam-
ation of students’ underlying knowledge structure and communication
skills. Celce-Murcia (1991) argued that grammar is not a stand-alone
skill but interact with other aspects of a language, including meaning,
social function, or discourse. Since grammar cannot be taught de-contex-
tualized, feedback for correction and discourse were among the most
effective ways of improving grammar (Celce-Murcia, 1991). In this study,
no discourse writing was involved since participants’ presentations were
more colloquial than formal. In addition, they were not required to turn
in essays after their presentations, so the instructor could only provide
limited feedback during or immediately after the oral presentations.
Future research should make essay writing a requirement of the class to
fully examine the effect of VR tools on their grammar skills.

Limitations and future research

This study is limited due to several factors. First, due to the nature of
the tasks participants had to perform with the VR tools (serving as vir-
tual tour guide), only students in advance Chinese classes were recruited
 COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 15

to participate in this study. Enrollment in such classes is usually small

even in a large state university. Since the sample size was quite small (N
¼ 12), the study employed a within-subject (WS) instead of a between-
subject (BS) design to increase the statistical power. Bellemare,
Bissonnette, and Kr€ oger (2014) suggested that to reach a similar power,
the WS design usually require about 1=4 of participants of a BS design.
Moreover, the results showed that, even with a small sample size, rela-
tively large effect sizes were detected for three aspects of participants’
oral proficiency (content, vocabulary, and total score).
The study was also limited because of the technical difficulty some
participants experienced as audiences (or followers on Google
Expeditions). As David mentioned, ‘I was never able to follow the guide
because my phone would never connect to the Wi-Fi server and I am not
sure why it would not’. During the study, it was found that only a limited
number of devices (around 10) could be connected as followers (or audi-
ences) at a given time. Although the majority of the participants were
able to follow, such technical difficulty could affect their motivation and
interest. As a result, this study only reported the findings of participants’
being the tour guides instead of audience. Future research should also
look into the followers’ experiences with more reliable technology tools.
Another limitation of the study was that the instructor was not able to
provide a lot of feedback to participants during their presentations due
to the constraint of class time. Previous research had pointed out that to
improve participants’ pronunciation and fluency, a large amount of
instantaneous feedback from native or near-native speakers are needed
(Engwall & B€alter, 2007). Future research could examine the combined
effects of VR tools and immediate feedback from human or technological
tutors such as automatic speech recognition tools (van Doremalen,
Boves, Colpaert, Cucchiarini, & Strik, 2016).

Conclusions
The present study integrated Google Cardboard and Google Expeditions
in an advanced Chinese Language class, where students role-played in
their target situations. According to Situated Cognition Theory, a nurtur-
ing learning experience should help construct and link activity, context
and culture, leading to rich implicit understanding, learning and acting.
The VR tools in this study improved participants’ oral presentations by
enabling a process consisting of contextualized authentic learning,
instructor coaching, peer collaboration, articulation of the gathered infor-
mation, and reflection.
16 Y. XIE ET AL.

The study was significant to the field in several ways: First, it provided
empirical evidence that these VR tools did improve participants’ oral
proficiency in terms of the content and vocabulary. Second, the follow-
up qualitative analyses offered insights about why learning improved.
Since mobile-based VR tools are increasingly adopted in various class-
rooms, the in-depth analyses about how learners interact with these tools
are instrumental for future VR design and research. As a new and poten-
tially powerful technology, understanding the parameters and consequen-
ces of these tools’ usage within higher education has significant meaning
for teachers, practitioners, and instructional designers for the classroom.
The study also has the potential of informing the best practice about
how to invigorate language classrooms and outreach with the increas-
ingly ubiquitous mobile-based, head-mounted VR technology for mean-
ingful language learning and growth.

Disclosure statement
There was no potential conflict of interest with the work we reported.

Data
All research related data, including raw data coded with pseudonyms and SPSS output
files can be requested by emailing the principle researcher of the study. After receiving
the request, access will be granted to a Dropbox folder where the files are stored.

ORCID
Ying Xie http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9189-6046

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Appendix A. oral presentation rubric

Criteria Level 1 (1 point) Level 2 (2 points) Level 3 (3 points) Level 4 (4 points) Level 5 (5 points)
Content The speaker The speaker is The speaker is The speaker is The speaker is
seems to have aware of the aware of the knowledgeable knowledgeable
little or no subject and subject and about the sub- about the sub-
understanding attempts to attempts to ject and pro- ject and pro-
of the subject. provide rele- provide rele- vides adequate vides a
Statement are vant ideas vant ideas detail, given significant level
superficial or about it with- about it. the of detail with
not relevant. out support- Provides time available. supporting
ing details. some details. materials,
given the
time available.
Fluency The speaker fails The speaker has The speaker hesi- The speaker sel- The speaker
to present a many hesita- tates several dom hesitates speaks confi-
topic and a tions and great times, but gen- and generally dently and nat-
focus that are difficulty erally seems to seems to know urally with no
inappropriate remembering know the the distracting hes-
for selecting desired words, desired words. itations. Ideas
the purpose. words. even if it is flow smoothly.
necessary to
think about
them a bit.
Vocabulary The speaker’s The speaker has The speaker has The speaker has The speaker pos-
vocabulary is enough an adequate enough sesses an
limited to: (a) vocabulary working vocabulary to extensive
high frequency (including high vocabulary. understand native-like
words for com- frequency The speaker is and participate vocabulary to
mon everyday idiomatic at a beginning in conversa- participate in
items and expressions) to stage of show- tions which more extended
actions, and make simple ing knowledge include discussions on
(b) some con- statements and of synonyms abstract ideas. a large number
versational for- ask questions and alternative The speaker is of concrete
mulaic or about concrete ways of aware of word and
idiomatic things in a expressing sim- connotations abstract topics.
expressions. simplified ple ideas. and nuances
conversation. in meanings.
Pronunciation Even at the level The speaker is The speaker is The speaker’s The speaker’s pro-
of isolated beginning to beginning to speech is nunciation and
words and for- master some demonstrate always intelli- intonation
mulaic expres- sounds and control over a gible, though a approach a
sions, The sound patterns; larger number definite accent native-
speaker exhib- however, she of sounds and and/or occa- like ability.
its difficulty still has diffi- sound patterns. sional inappro-
inaccurately culty with Some repeti- priate inton-
reproducing many other tion may be ation pattern
the target lan- sounds, mak- necessary to is apparent.
guage sounds ing mean- make mean-
and ing unclear. ing clear.
sound
patterns.
Grammar The speaker’s pro- The speaker can The speaker’s The speaker’s The speaker artic-
ductive skills produce utter- speech shows speech exhibits ulates with no
are limited to ances which a limited abil- a good com- more incorrect
high frequency show an ity to utilize a mand over a grammar than
words and understanding few complex large range of a native
short formulaic of basic sen- constructions, more complex speaker would.
conversational tence and though not patterns with
expressions. question pat- always success- few incorrectly
The speaker terns, but fully. Other uses parts of
fails to use incorrectly incorrectly uses speech or
(continued)
 COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 21

Appendix A. Continued.
Criteria Level 1 (1 point) Level 2 (2 points) Level 3 (3 points) Level 4 (4 points) Level 5 (5 points)
correctly con- constructs sen- parts of speech noticeable
structs senten- tences or uses and noticeable grammatical
ces or uses parts of speech grammatical errors.
parts of are present errors persist
speech. It is which which may
difficult or obscure make mean-
impossible to meaning. ing ambiguous.
assess her
knowledge
of grammar.

Adapted from

Wu, W-C. V., Marek, M. W. & Huang, H. W. (2012). Using Skype and Facebook
as social media to enhance the speaker communicative competency and cultural
awareness in an EFL advanced conversation class. In J. Colpaert, A. Aerts, W.C. V
Wu, & Y.C.J. Chao(Eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 CALL Conference (pp. 681-684).
Antwerp: CALL (Taichung, Taiwan).

Padilla, A. M., & Sung, H. (1999). The Stanford Foreign Language Oral Skills
Evaluation Matrix (FLOSEM): A rating scale for assessing communicative profi-
ciency. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED445538.pdf