Using Technology To Teach English

This seems interesting.  I wonder if it's scalable:

That spirit has been harnessed at Mr Oyarbide's school, Nava College Preparatory Academy. The school was the trial site for a scheme that has pitched using the metaverse to help teach English to students with a limited grasp of the language.

The term metaverse is used to describe a series of virtual reality worlds that can be accessed through a browser or virtual reality (VR) headset.

The idea behind the scheme is to harness the power of VR technology to bypass traditional teaching methods and plunge students into a world of possibility in a virtual universe...

For Mr Oyarbide, the possibility of sharpened focus among his easily distracted students had huge appeal.

"I've been teaching for 12 years. If kids can figure out anything it is how not to pay attention! I wanted to try something different, do normal learning from books for one period and then switch to VR."

In doing this, he discovered that a VR environment swept away the inhibitions of many of his students wrestling with learning a new language.

He says the technique helped them practise their language skills without embarrassment.

Sounds good, but anyone with half a brain can see potential problems with this sort of pedagogy--Mr. Ovarbide included: 

Students would usually use the VR equipment for two or three hours a week...

Despite the positive impact VR has had on his teaching methods, Mr Oyarbide is not a starry-eyed convert to the avalanche of metaverse hype typified by Facebook's rebranding as Meta.

He says there is still great advantages to a traditional classroom setting.

"The old approach to teaching through books does not go away. And you're not going to wear a headset for four hours a day. But it does allow you to reduce teacher talk and create a tangible space for a student's confidence to grow."

Sounds good so far!