The effect of immersive virtual reality use on listening skill in foreign language education

With the increasing use of technology in education, virtual reality applications have become an important tool in learning and teaching processes. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the effects of immersive virtual reality experiences and virtual reality on English listening skills of students in a multidimensional way. In this study, examining the academic achievements of the participants after the learning experience is one of the primary objectives. At the point of making an evaluation about the learning process, it is aimed to reveal the attitudes and views of the participants about the virtual reality environment and learning processes. The Mondly VR application, which was developed for the training of English listening skills, was used during the application. The study group consists of 32 English preparatory students studying at the Inonu University School of Foreign Languages in the 2021-2022 academic year and willing to participate in the study voluntarily. The study group was determined by the purposeful sampling method. In the study, mixed method was used as a research method in examining the effect of immersive virtual reality use on listening skills in foreign language education. Semi-structured interview form to examine students' experiences, attitudes and perceptions of success in the process of virtual reality education, achievement test to determine the effect of virtual reality application on student success, observation form to be used during education and rubric data collection tool to measure students' listening skills during virtual reality application process was used. In addition, the data of the listening and speaking tests applied to the students in the virtual reality application were collected. In the study, the qualitative data obtained from the students were analyzed in accordance with the thematic analysis method, one of the qualitative data analysis methods. Nvivo 12 program was used during the analysis of qualitative data. SPSS program was used to analyze the quantitative data of the study. In addition, virtual reality has many positive effects such as making education interesting, increasing motivation, increasing communication skills, providing interaction opportunities, increasing active participation, reducing communication anxiety, providing opportunity to be in different places, providing problem-based learning, providing self-paced learning and increasing creativity. On the other hand, there are some negative aspects related to inadequacy in listening and speaking English, shyness and excitement, afraid of falling, technical problems, problems with educational content, not being able to predict the limits of the range of motion, lack of experience, physical problems, feeling insecure and distraction during virtual reality practice. It is thought that this study will make an important contribution to the literature on the use of immersive virtual reality technology used in foreign language education.