Reducing Foreign Language Anxiety with Virtual Reality

An immersive VR experience was developed to examine the relationship between foreign language anxiety (FLA), virtual audience characteristics, and learners' perceptions of the virtual audience. Seven students studying English as a second language selected their avatars and practised their presentations in front of a virtual audience in a realistic classroom. Results indicated that participants' FLA levels increased when presenting to larger audiences, but decreased after repeated presentations. They were also able to identify the surroundings more readily when presenting in front of smaller audiences, as well as in front of audiences of diverse ethnicity.