Buckling down: Initiating an EFL reading circle in a casual online learning group

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in online virtual worlds as possible sites for language teaching and learning, there is little information on education in existing non-profit EFL communities. is paper introduces Cypris Chat, a casual online EFL learning group in Second Life (SL). It follows several Cypris members as they attend a special, more traditional reading circle class online, and observes how they adapt to their new roles in that class. rough research journals, field notes, video recording and interviews with all participants, the author provides a constructivist perspective on how different participants interpreted and reacted to this shift in roles and class structure and examines course feedback. Results suggest presumptions that participants in casual, social, self-directed online communities somehow lack academic self-discipline are ill-founded. ey also illustrate the benefits of qualitative methodology in studies of virtual world communities.