Multi-User Domain Object Oriented (MOO) as a High School Procedure for Foreign Language Acquisition.

Foreign language students experience added difficulty when they are isolated from native speakers and from the culture of the target language. It has been posited that MOO (Multi-User Domain Object Oriented) may help overcome the geographical isolation of these students. MOOs are Internet-based virtual worlds in which people from all over the real world meet for synchronous textual conversations and can interact with asynchronous textual objects found there. Students who enjoy a MOO site may identify with its virtual target language community and find integrative motivation that the literature suggests is necessary for advanced language acquisition. This study focused on the affective nature of MOO. An experimental group of high school English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students experienced 12 academic hours at a MOO site for EFL students. Using pretest and posttest questionnaires, participants indicated their anxiety about and motivations towards various EFL procedures and English class in general. Findings demonstrate that some significantly positive attitudes toward using MOOs as an EFL procedure, particularly for male students and those who felt proficient with computers. Nevertheless, the findings did not match the enthusiasm found in various position papers about MOO and EFL instruction. The experimental group gave significantly higher scores for relevance and expected success in regard to general EFL instruction. However, it gave MOO significantly lower scores in relevance satisfaction as an EFL procedure when compared to the overall averages of the 13 other EFL procedures. No other major significant differences were found. Numerous tables and figures are included, as well as 152 references and 7 appendices with all pretests, posttests, questionnaires, and other materials used in the research. (KFT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Multi-User Domain Object Oriented (MOO) as a High School Procedure for Foreign Language Acquisition