Reflections on the design and development of language educational resources in the three-dimensional virtual reality environment High Fidelity

The emergences of freely accessible 2D virtual worlds on the web have brought new opportunities for language education, resulting in the proliferation of virtual language schools and language learning spaces. Studies examining these sites and their users have consistently shown benefits to learners. In late 2016, a number of virtual reality wearables, such as Oculus Rift, were commercially released, facilitating a major shift in the nature of virtual worlds towards three dimensional, totally immersive, virtual reality environments. While these new environments have further extended opportunities for virtual worlds-based language education, they nevertheless involve more complex design and user functionality. Using the virtual world High Fidelity and Oculus Rift, this project explores and reflects on the potential for teacher-led design and development of virtual reality language educational learning resources in a three dimensional, totally immersive, virtual reality environment