Embodied Affective Reconfiguration in L2 Speaking Fluency: A Longitudinal Study of Learners of German as a Foreign Language in a VR Game-Based Environment
(2026)
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- Research on digital game-based and immersive language learning has expanded opportunities for second language (L2) speaking, yet broad technology labels can obscure how speaking is organised pedagogically, how fluency changes across repeated participation, and why learners following similar measured courses may experience activity differently. This dissertation addresses these problems through a cumulative, emergent multiphase programme centred on learners of German as a foreign language in the TravelKit social virtual-reality environment. The programme combined a systematic review of digital game-based L2 speaking research, the evidence-informed design of TravelKit 1.0, an initial mixed-methods evaluation, iterative redesign into TravelKit 2.0, and a seven-session longitudinal mixed-methods study. Study 2 involved 27 learners in Belgium and Singapore and integrated repeated post-session speech samples, learner-experience questionnaires, and interviews. Linear mixed-effects models characterised change in fluency articulation rate (FAR) and fluency speech rate (FSR). Exploratory participant-level analyses and longitudinal qualitative analysis were then integrated to differentiate the experiential histories represented within quantitative classifications. FAR increased across the seven observations, whereas FSR did not show a corresponding trend. The aggregate FAR increase was concentrated primarily among lower-starting learners, while higher-starting learners maintained comparatively high performance. Higher-than-usual cognitive load was associated with lower FAR within participants, but average cognitive load did not show the same between-participant relation. Psychological profiles and FAR trajectory groups overlapped only partially, and similar measured trajectories encompassed contrasting patterns of manageability, disruption, adaptation, support use, and compensation. These findings do not estimate a general causal effect of VR; they show that measured development within the specified activity was dimension-specific, temporally uneven, and experientially heterogeneous. The dissertation's principal theoretical contribution is speaking configuration, proposed as an episode-level analytic unit for examining the temporary functional organisation of linguistic, cognitive, affective, social, material, and task-related conditions during real-time L2 speaking. Embodied Affective Reconfiguration (EAR) is positioned as a subordinate, provisional longitudinal lens for comparing how such configurations may change, stabilise, or recur across repeated participation. Together, the programme shifts attention from technology exposure and isolated learner variables towards pedagogically specified activity, participant-sensitive temporal evidence, and bounded mixed-methods explanation.
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He, B. (2026). Embodied Affective Reconfiguration in L2 Speaking Fluency: A Longitudinal Study of Learners of German as a Foreign Language in a VR Game-Based Environment. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/281453