1. Introduction

1Rogers (2019) calls virtual reality (VR) the “learning aid of the 21^st century.” As a matter of fact, research on VR in educational contexts has been done since the beginning of the 21^st century to study the strengths and weaknesses when integrating 2D and 3D virtual worlds in the classroom, and more particularly in language classes (Wigham & Chanier, 2013; Deutschmann & Panichi, 2013; Peterson, 2017; Berti, 2019; Kaplan-Rakowski et al. 2022). In parallel, research in neuroscience has come to support language teachers’ intuitions: the interactions produced during creative, playful and immersive activities within educational environments have a positive effect on the cognitive development of learners (Toscani, 2017; Aden, 2017; Eschenauer et al., 2023). In the 1990s, neuroscientist Varela (1993; 1996) developed the enaction paradigm, which falls within embodied cognition theories, to define how meaning and knowledge are created in the mind through bodies and emotions. This paradigm has enabled language teachers to scientifically study the positive effects of sensory-motor devices such as virtual worlds and to realise that using VR applications is likely to create new relations between perception, cognition and action which support language learning/teaching (Molle et al., 2020; Kaplan-Rakowski & Gruber, 2021; Privas-Bréauté & Ciekanski, 2021). This, added to the study of the affordances of VR in the context of language teaching/learning (Shin, 2017; Ciekanski et al. 2020), facilitating engagement and motivation (Chen & Kent, 2019), are the reasons why we think that language teachers should be trained to this new educational device before they integrate it into their practices.

2However, we wanted to collect the perceptions of English student-teachers to verify that they also see VR as a potentially didactic approach falling within embodiment theories. This article focuses on how English student-teachers perceive the creation of new learning environments in virtual reality. Do they think VR facilitates immersion, sensory-motor agency and, subsequently, language learning? What is their emotional experience of VR? Will they integrate VR applications in their teaching practice?

3To answer these questions, pedagogical interventions with 20 master’s students in English teaching/learning were carried out in 2022 in the context of second language teacher education (SLTE). The data we collected consist of the student-teachers’ responses to pre- and post-intervention questionnaires as well as photos and videos taken during the trials of VR headsets. Analysed using appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005) to put forward the emotions they felt and the use of their bodies in VR and in language learning, their answers shed light on what they view as obstacles and levers in using and creating VR apps as educational environments. They also put forward the need to accompany teachers in the use of VR for language learning.

2. Literature review

2.1. Embodied cognition theories

4In the 1980s, linguists explored how abstract concepts could be based on metaphors of bodily and physical concepts. At about the same time, researchers in neuroscience studied how the mind could be understood in the context of its relationship to a physical body that interacts with the world and its environment. Following research in cognitive neuroscience using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and EEG (electroencephalograms), the emerging concept of embodied cognition led linguists like Lakoff and Johnson (1999) to open their book Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought with this explanation.

Reason is not disembodied, as the tradition has largely held, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experience. […] Reason is not, in any way, a transcendent feature of the universe or of disembodied mind. Instead, it is shaped crucially by the peculiarities of our human bodies, by the remarkable details of the neural structure of our brains, and by the specifics of our everyday functioning in the world. […] Reason is not dispassionate, but emotionally engaged (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 4).

5Neuroscientists have indeed brought evidence to this. Varela (1996), for example, writes that cognition arises from an action-perception loop in which an individual’s perception of elements in a precise environment is triggered by action and triggers it. He puts the body and emotions at the centre of learning in this perception-action loop and invites his readers to understand that meaning only emerges through the cooperation of the body, emotions, and mind in a specific context. He adds that languages serve to bring people together (“to couple them”) to make meaning emerge; this sense-making takes shape individually and depends on the environment. The place of language in reaching cognition is thus crucial and the environment and the context of language use are the conditions for sense-making. Varela asserts that thought is not separated from the body: thought and speech are embodied; cognition is embodied and emerges in contextualised situations.

6For Panksepp (1998), emotions are indeed tightly linked to behavioural interactional components and cognitive processes, through the executive functions (such as decision-making and planification).

Emotions are the psychoneural processes that are influential in controlling the vigour and patterning of actions in the dynamic flow of intense behavioural interchanges between animals as well as with certain objects that are important for survival. Hence, each emotion has a characteristic “feeling tone” that is especially important in encoding the intrinsic values of these interactions, depending on their likelihood of either promoting or hindering survival (both in the immediate “personal” and long-term “reproductive” sense). Subjective experiential-feelings arise from the interactions of various emotional systems with the fundamental brain substrates of “the self,” that is important in encoding new information as well as retrieving information on subsequent events and allowing individuals efficiently to generalize new events and make decisions (Panksepp, 1998, p. 48).

7Panksepp (1998, p. 55) adds to this that “the executive circuits for the basic emotions probably also help enable and encode new learning.” For Immordino-Yang and Damasio (1997), emotions impact consciousness precisely and make it possible to access cognition, including that of language. Immordino-Yang (2016, p. 37) has carried out studies on the role of emotions in education and points out that emotions and cognition are supported by interdependent neural processes. Her research has led her to discover the existence of “emotional thought”, a matrix she defines as an “important overlap between cognition and emotion.” Emotional thoughts can change the state of the body in characteristic ways, for example by accelerating sweating or changing the heart rate. In turn, the bodily sensations of these changes, real or simulated, contribute to feelings, which can influence thinking. The experience of these conscious or unconscious bodily sensations can then affect cognitive processes, like attention and memory, in learning. There can be no learning without emotions (Immordino-Yang, 2016; Tyng et al., 2017).

2.2. The educational potential of VR in language learning

8In their article about the large-scale survey they conducted on Russian teachers’ attitude in using VR in classrooms, Khukalenko et al. (2022) list the major characteristics of VR for learning.

VR offers experiential learning using visually-rich simulations; VR caters for pedagogically-sound, student-centered learning where students engage in settings and scenarios independently or in socially-rich contexts; VR allows to experience scenarios that may be too dangerous, costly, difficult, or impossible to experience in real life (e.g., manipulating a solar system); users experience the sense of presence and immersion; abstract concepts are easier to visualize in VR (Khukalenko et al., 2022).

9Other research has particularly put forward the many advantages of virtual worlds in sustaining engagement, attention and motivation in second/foreign language acquisition/ learning (Borona et al, 2018; Roy, 2017; Chen & Kent, 2019; Lan, 2020; Ciekanski et al., 2020; Meyran-Martinez & Spanghero-Gaillard, 2021). Moreover, in requiring the users’ physical bodies and bringing out their emotions, virtual worlds and immersive virtual environments fall within the above-mentioned embodied cognition theories (Molle et al., 2020); some virtual environments even ask for the creation of avatars that are unique to the players and bring them back to their humanity and singularity, in their body and in their emotions (Privas-Bréauté, 2023b). It is in this context that VR has been considered as a language learning approach inscribed in embodiment theories and worth introducing in SLTE (Ciekanski et al., 2020; Privas-Bréauté, 2021; Castaño-Calle et al., 2022).

2.3. Second language teacher education

12Our SLTE programme focusing on experiments with VR inscribed in a participatory research action protocol requires the participants to precisely determine the extent to which VR, considered to be enactive and immersive, can become an educational asset for language learning/teaching. Through this project, in which the educational value of VR is co-constructed, the participants are made to become aware by themselves of the sensory-motor agency provided by VR, to think about educational scenarios facilitating language learning, and then possibly use VR in their own practices, in turn. They are led to realise that through immersion and sensory-motor agency in contextualised situations, VR engages learners and motivates them. Then we collect their perceptions when it comes to reflecting on the bodily and emotional dimensions of using VR in second language teaching/learning and can answer our questions.

3. Methodology

3.1. Context of the experimentation

13The interventions for this research were conducted from September 2022 to December 2022 with 20 master’s degree students in English teaching/learning, some of whom were already in-service teachers. Our programme, renewed year after year, is organised within a series of lessons aimed at having student-teachers learn more about course-building, learning/teaching materials and learning/teaching methods. In this context, many educational approaches are presented and tested: role-play, board games, drawing, drama, and virtual reality. In this article, the focus is exclusively on the interventions involving virtual reality with VR headsets, which represents three two-hour lessons. These lessons, divided into two distinct parts – workshop and research, are designed to allow students to 1) try out the applications and thus immerse themselves in the applications and situations proposed and 2) fill in questionnaires to bring out the pedagogical uses and the development of language skills of the virtual reality applications that they test.

3.2. Research protocol

14The students actively participate in this research action/creation project and are involved in the research protocol (Table 1) by a) signing informed consent for the right to disseminate the photos, videos and questionnaires that constitute the data for this research, b) answering pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, c) testing the proposed approaches, d) becoming aware of the implementation of a research protocol as they personally experience what is expected of them in the context of their research thesis and e) reflecting on the inclusion of these educational approaches in theoretical didactic frameworks.

15The equipment used consists of six Oculus Rift headsets and four Oculus/Meta Quest 2 headsets. The student-teachers are advised to use the headsets for 30 minutes only, and then pass them on to another student, so that every student experiences VR. The applications that are tested are chosen and recommended by the trainer.

Table 1 – Research protocol.

Lesson	Workshop	Research
1	Presentation of the learning material, of VR, of the headsets.	The trainees sign consent forms. The trainees fill in a pre-intervention questionnaire. The trainer takes photos and videos.
2	Intervention 1 with free travel, cultural and discovery apps like Google Earth, The Smithsonian’s Venice, YouTube VR, The People’s House, Home After Wars and World History.	The trainer takes photos and videos. The trainees fill in post-intervention questionnaire 1.
3	Intervention 2 using free entertainment apps like Amaze, Disney VR, Epic Roller Coasters, Home Spacewalk.	The trainer takes photos and videos. The trainees fill in post-intervention questionnaire 2.

16The purpose of the pre-intervention questionnaire (Appendix 1), which each student must answer before the interventions, is threefold: 1) to establish an inventory of students’ knowledge of digital training devices, 2) to find out about their personal use of digital technology, and 3) to understand their professional use of digital tools in the language classroom.

17A post-intervention questionnaire (Appendix 2) is distributed immediately after each of both interventions, so the respondents do not have much time to think about what they have experienced. Experiencing the apps enables them to create and provide educational scenarios for language skills development and training. The theoretical courses on SLA and ELT, which are delivered in the programme to add to the knowledge of the students, allow them to justify their use of VR as an educational tool.

18It should be noted that the questions and responses of all the questionnaires are in French and have been translated into English for this article.

19During each intervention, videos and photos of the students are taken to triangulate the results and illustrate the answers provided by the questionnaires.

3.3. Data

20The data collected are mixed: quantitative data is supplied by the questionnaires and qualitative data is acquired through parts of the questionnaires as well as the videos and photos taken during the interventions.

21In 2022, 17 students out of 20 filled in the pre-intervention questionnaire, and 36 post-intervention questionnaires were collected at the end of the interventions with VR (instead of 40), for not all the students were present at each of the lessons. For this article, we only consider the answers that shed light to what is felt and experienced by the participants in terms of immersion, sensory-motor agency and emotions. Therefore, only some responses of the post-intervention questionnaire are analysed.

4. Results

4.1. The development of language skills

22Since previous encouraging results have been provided on the development of language skills through VR (Chateau et al., 2019; Chen & Kent, 2019; Meyran-Martinez & Spanghero-Gaillard, 2021), we want to know if student-teachers think that language skills can be trained in an autonomous manner with VR (Question 12 of the post-questionnaire). When compiled, the 36 answers to this question reveal that 47.1% think VR apps do not encourage the development of language skills autonomously, whereas 52.9% think they do (Figure 1).

23To justify their answers, the respondents explain that the autonomous development of language skills depends mainly on a) the applications that are chosen by the teacher, b) the objectives of the lessons (training oral and/or written skills for instance) and c) the types of tasks the pupils are required to accomplish. To give an example, they think that apps like The People’s House, where users meet and listen to Michelle and Barak Obama speak about their lives at the White House, trains listening skills only.

24Then, Question 14 of the post-intervention questionnaire requires the participants to present a more detailed use of the VR apps that were tested in terms of educational objectives and language skills training. Among the responses collected, many student-teachers use discovery, travel and cultural apps such as Google Earth, Home Spacewalk or The Smithsonian’s Venice to train reading and listening skills and point out the fact that it is difficult to help develop writing and speaking skills, due to technical issues, for example. The cultural dimension takes precedence here over the linguistic dimension, with students opting from the outset for environments where the cultural input is highlighted, and where the context is immediate, which corroborates the enaction paradigm: language, verbal and/or non-verbal, emerges in situations where the context is clearly identified.

4.2. Sensory-motor agency and emotions

25Since we are interested in the emotions the participants are feeling and how body use is perceived in VR applications, the responses of the student-teachers to open-ended Questions 8 (“What was/were your first impression/s?”), 9 (“Explain in a few words”), 10 (“What emotion/s have you felt?”) and 11 (“Explain in a few words”) of the post-intervention questionnaire are analysed according to appraisal theory (AT). This framework for discourse analysis brings light to “those meanings by which texts convey positive or negative assessments, by which the intensity or directness of such attitudinal utterances is strengthened or weakened and by which speakers/writers engage dialogistically with prior speakers or with potential respondents to the current proposition.” (White, 2015, p. 54). Using this framework helps focus on how students perceive VR when it comes to relying on embodiment theories in language education. The focus is here on attitude and, informed by AT, a classification of the responses according to the three sub-categories of “affect”, “appreciation” and “judgement” by frequency of occurrence can be provided. Some of their responses cannot be classified and have not been considered for this research. A few photos help illustrate the responses.

4.2.1. Affect

26If we first look at affect, defined as the “positive/negative assessments presented as emotional reactions” (Martin & White, 2005, p. 56), the responses of the students fitting this criterion can be seen in Table 2.

Table 2 – Assessment as an emotional reaction.

27While more than 100% of the answers are linked to positive assessments (the respondents can write as many adjectives as they want), 20% are linked to negative ones. So, VR brings out more positive emotions than negative ones. Student-teachers write that they are disappointed when the applications they want to experience do not exist anymore or must be updated, other student-teachers feel frustration when the apps do not work well.

28A few photos show the respondents’ emotions in using VR: for instance, in Figure 2, the student’s smile may reflect her joy while, in Figure 3, the absence of any facial expression on the student-teacher’s might indicate his frustration.

4.2.2. Appreciation

29The responses of the students aligned with appreciation, a criterion which refers to “assessments of objects, artefacts, texts, states of affairs, and processes in terms of how they are assigned value socially” (Martin & White, 2005, p. 56), can be seen in Table 3.

Table 3 – Assessment of artefacts, entities, happenings, and states of affairs by reference to aesthetics and other systems of social valuation.

	Positive assessment		Negative assessment
VR headsets	Ease of use	3/36 = 8.3%	Difficulty in control	6/36 = 16.6%
			No proper placement of the headset	3/36 = 8.3%
			Slight dizziness	2/36 = 5.5%
			Loss of balance	1/36 = 2.7%
VR applications	Immersive	4/36 = 11.1%
	Interactive	4/36 = 11.1%	Lack of interaction with the environment	2/36 = 5.5%
	Arouse curiosity	1/36 = 2.7%	Lack of agency, passivity in a 360° video	2/36 = 5.5%

3033.2% of the answers show a positive appreciation of VR. Immersion and interaction, two affordances of VR as studied by Kalyaniwala (2023) and Shin (2017), are the main words recurring in the respondent’s verbatims. One of the student-teachers writes that “[y]ou are immersed, you feel like you can touch, communicate, move”, and another explains that, in Home Spacewalk, it is “possible to interact with the setting and grab objects.” Curiosity, in its positive sense, is another impression that some participants put forward. Some even explain that this impression is tightly linked to a desire to discover new environments. However, 44.1% of the participants’ responses shed light on the downsides: they have troubles handling the tool and/or placing the headset properly on their heads. Some student-teachers experience loss of balance and dizziness. Other responses show that some of the apps tested (The Smithsonian’s Venice, for instance) do not encourage interaction and agency.

31To exemplify this, Figure 4 shows the student-teacher’ exploration of movement while Figure 5 indicates the dizziness and loss of balance that might be felt when using VR.

4.2.3. Judgement

32Martin and White (2005, p. 56) define judgement as the “positive/negative assessments of human behaviour and character by reference to ethics/morality and other systems of conventionalized or institutionalised norms.” In this context, we think that the “norm” pertains to “real” reality and all responses comparing virtual reality and “real” reality are treated in this section, as shown in Table 4.

Table 4 – Assessment of human behaviour and/or character by reference to ethics and other social norms.

	Positive assessment		Negative assessment
VR applications	Allowing a disconnection from the real world	4/36 = 11.1%	Risk of being overwhelmed	1/36 = 2.7%
	Visiting in a fun way	3/36 = 8.3%
	Realistic	1/36 = 2.7%
	Quiet application that allows for more accessible tourist trips	1/36 = 2.7%

33When it comes to comparing “real” reality and virtual reality, 24.7% of the probands’ answers are positive while 2.7% are negative. Many participants put forward the positive disconnection from the real world and the different modes of visiting the world that VR allows. Only one student-teacher remarks that some apps might lead the pupils to be overwhelmed with too much visual, oral, aural, textual information and lose sight of the learning goals.

34This project thus permits our student-teachers to experience VR through VR headsets and many apps that it offers and to realise that their bodies and emotions are solicited via immersion and sensory-motor agency. The post-intervention questionnaires help them a) get a metacognitive reflection on their experience b) think about/ create educational scenarios for language learning from the apps c) consider the positives and negatives of the device and, eventually, d) compare traditional learning materials and VR.

5. Discussion

35The responses of the student-teachers indicate that the VR experience they live through is embodied and arouses emotions. Through these sessions and the post-intervention questionnaires they fill in, the student-teachers become aware of the role of their bodies and the emergence of positive emotions, which should be included in language learning to facilitate it. Indeed, one of their SLA courses focuses on how speaking follows and accompanies non-verbal forms of communication. This awareness of the preverbal echoes Immordino-Yang’s emotional thought matrix (2016) and should alert them to the importance of studying the conditions in which language learners are placed in communicative situations.

36VR resources provoke experiences with a high degree of immersion, sensory-motor agency and emotional impact, as we can read in their positive and negative assessments. The teaching/learning atmosphere is also impacted: much laughter breaks out during VR sessions. However, Ciekanski and Yibokou (2022) studied language students’ learning with VR and, after collecting the participants’ opinions on their experience, reached that conclusion.

The more the situation provokes a positive emotion, the more the language or extra-language elements seem to be retained. However, 3D immersions tend to generate a cognitive and emotional overload that seems to limit attention and information processing (our translation, Ciekanski & Yibokou, 2022).

Plus la situation provoque une émotion positive, plus les éléments langagiers ou extra-langagiers semblent retenus. Pour autant, les immersions 3D tendraient à générer une surcharge cognitive et émotionnelle qui semble limiter l’attention et le traitement d’information (Ciekanski & Yibokou, 2022).

37So, if teachers want to use VR in language education, they must be vigilant about a) the applications they choose, b) how they introduce them and c) what skills they want their students to develop.

38Throughout these interventions, many apps have been seen as permitting the users’ sensory-motor agency, but others have been perceived as simply enhanced versions of videos, in which the participants do not play an active role. Indeed, in their research, Ciekanski and Yibokou (2022) reveal that the scenarios behind the tools are the most determining and impact learning the most.

The more participation and agency are involved in the scenario, the more users are led to exploit the resources of the environment and develop multiple attention to multimodal information. Conversely, when scripting involves little agency, students adopt a floating listening style with little motivation and low performance, and mostly retain the elements that are made visually salient (…) (our translation, Ciekanski & Yibokou, 2022).

Plus la scénarisation implique participation et agentivité, plus les utilisateurs sont amenés à exploiter les ressources de l’environnement et à développer une attention multiple aux informations multimodales. À l’inverse, lorsque la scénarisation implique une faible agentivité, les étudiants adoptent une écoute flottante peu motivée et peu performante, et retiennent majoritairement les éléments rendus saillants visuellement (…)(Ciekanski & Yibokou, 2022).

39Many of the applications that are recommended and tested have not been designed for language teaching/learning, so teachers willing to use them for educational purposes must enrich them and are thus required to be creative. Many can come up with very interesting, innovating, clever activities and tasks. For instance, one participant in this research suggests this one.

Google Earth to take your class on a tour of the English-speaking world. Students could try to get their peers to draw where they are communicating in English, orally, in a question-and-answer format.

40Another proposes that one.

• 6 Pekin Express is a French TV programme in which several teams compete and must accomplish tasks wit (...)

It would be interesting to do a treasure hunt in London. Students would have to figure out clues, go to different places and reach different checkpoints before the other teams (a bit reminiscent of Pekin Express⁶).

41Yet, other student-teachers have no clue, and admit it.

I can’t think of a didactic application right now. However, I’m convinced that it’s a tool that can be effective from a language point of view in the classroom and at home (if students have a VR headset).

42Therefore, the experiments and the data collected show that many English student-teachers still need to be trained and accompanied when it comes to using VR in task-based and design-based approaches (Chen & Kent, 2019; Capron-Puozzo, 2021).

43To finish, the difficult handling of the tool that stands out might prevent them from introducing it in language classes. It is thus essential to add digital training of VR in teacher training. Khukalenko et al. (2022) remark that “numerous studies demonstrate that as teachers gain experience with technology, they start to integrate it into educational practices more frequently and with more flexibility.” If teachers start “taming” the tool, they may start using it more frequently in turn, and maybe this will pave the way for more creativity on their part.

6. Conclusion

44The data collected invite us to understand that English student-teachers are generally more positive than negative when assessing VR for education. Their perceptions of this new device as an educational one for language learning are also encouraging even if there are still many obstacles (including financial ones) today that may prevent teachers from introducing VR in class.

45Beyond that, these VR experiments raise phenomenological questions related to the embodied cognition theories in articulating perception and action through an experience of the world the contours of which are redefined by the technology. Vial (2013) points out that our experience of the world, facilitated by the senses and particularly accessible through our perception and our interaction with the phenomena which shape this experience (in other words, experience means experiencing a phenomenon and every time we perceive, we experience the world), is enhanced by technology.

Our relationship to the world, as a phenomenological relationship to “things themselves”, is fundamentally conditioned by technology, and always has been. The digital revolution is not a beginning, but one of those “ontophanic” recommencements that are few and far between in History (our translation, Vial, 2013, p. 24).

Notre rapport au monde, comme rapport phénoménologique aux « choses mêmes », est fondamentalement conditionné par la technologie, et l’a toujours été. La révolution numérique n’est pas un commencement, mais un de ces recommencements « ontophaniques » comme il y en a peu dans l’Histoire (Vial, 2013, p. 24).

46VR in language education allows a digital “ontophany”, that is to say an experience-of-the-world made possible in the digital age and invites us to rethink how we perceive ourselves in the world (Vial, 2013).

47We thus think that VR reshapes our relationship with the world from a phenomenological perspective. These interventions allow the students to experience the world phenomenologically and choosing to collect their perceptions about their education-based experience with VR places them at the centre of a new perception-action loop worth studying.