Languagelab.com in Secondlife

A few posts ago, I wrote a little bit about SecondLife. I mentioned a company actively teaching languages in Secondlife. After doing some research, I've found them.

They are called LanguageLab. There are dozens of language community sites that use state-of-the-art internet resources and techniques to help people learn a language. But LanguageLab takes it a step further by creating an immersive 3D environment, or rather using the unique online interactive world of SecondLife. Thus far, they are focusing on teaching English, but they have plans to expand their products and teach other languages. This is grounbreaking stuff, and this may be a glimpse into the classroom of the future.

Languages in Secondlife

Secondlife.com is an online interactive world of truly massive proportions. Rendered in 3D environments, people from all over the world perform ordinary internet functions like chat, form social groups, buy and sell things etc. in a completely immersive environment.Virtually anything can be created or built.

For language learners, there are tons of opportunities to meet people or just experience a virtual world immersed in the language you are learning. Just a brief view of Secondlife opens up a world of potential uses for language learners.

I have little knowledge of Secondlife and no real experience with it. But, I suspect that the possibilities just hinted at in most language community sites could be taken to extraordinary new heights in Secondlife. I already know of one company using Secondlife to teach language (I'll go through my notes and find out more about that and post on it later) and I'll bet that others will follow.

Would anyone having any real experience with learning or using a foreign language in
Secondlife care to comment on it and shed some light?