RendezVu foreign language world

By immersing students in real-life settings where they use their knowledge, RendezVu gives learners a deeper and more dynamic understanding of languages, through using them in context.

How it works

Our award winning product uses virtual world and e-learning technologies to provide the first truly immersive environment where you can speak, listen, read and write your language 24x7.

Our world contains areas such as a bank, cafe, train station etc where you can order a meal or buy a ticket in French or other languages. Our virtual assistants (ticket-master, café waiter, librarian plus many more) are controlled by artificial intelligence and have the ability to think, learn and know about their surroundings. They are always available for students to converse with, so they can practise their language skills with a fluent speaker (our virtual assistants). What differentiates our product is that our software is not just a set of canned responses; the system can maintain full conversations even when the student is making mistakes. Students advance in the world by achieving objectives. As they advance, students face greater challenges which require greater language skills.

Students can also converse with one another and teachers as well as our virtual assistants. Therefore you can contact others of a similar level and practise speaking together within the world.

RendezVu maps learning goals onto activities and events within the world and tracks the progress of individual learners within it. What is unique about our technology is that it allows learners to make mistakes and continue conversing. A key element of language learning is fluency – this is encouraged by keeping the conversation going, even while students make mistakes. At the same time, students who make mistakes will see that their score does not advance as much as others who make less mistakes. They can view the mistakes they have made on our website in detail and eliminate them to improve their scoring.

GCSE

This product was built to address the GCSE Modern Foreign Language specifications. All of the language contexts and topics; Travel & Tourism, Destinations, Media etc are supported. The topics are arranged into goals of varying degrees of difficulty across the recommended standards of the specification, each is mapped to a set of scenarios which reflect GCSE learning outcomes (investigate, understand, describe and discuss).

In addition, mapping onto appropriate scenarios ensures the core vocabulary can be used as students achieve gradually more demanding goals. These goals are set within the recommended parameters of the Specification and measured against the recommended grading scale for each unit.

Why it works

Lack of opportunity: The single greatest reason for failure to learn a new language is lack of opportunity to USE the language. Repeating phrases to a blank wall in your room is not speaking a language. Similarly, playing canned audio or video on a website or CD-ROM is not using the language. RendezVu forces you to think on your feet, as our virtual assistants engage you in conversation.

Vocabulary: The neural pathways that form our vocabulary are not created by looking at words on a page. Pathways are formed through visually association. What makes "chaise" for example a chair in your mind is actually sitting "sur la chaise", with your friends. By immersing yourself in a world where all business around you is conducted in the target language, you will pick up the language "on the ear".

Maintaining Interest Levels

One of the main problems experienced by learners is maintaining interest levels. By providing scoring, group activities and ever greater challenges, RendezVu provides the interest factor essential for learners.

But don't take our word for it - try it for yourself!