Abstract—One of the challenges of postgraduate students is to
deliver an academic presentation efficiently in English, and
overcome their foreign language anxiety. This study was an
attempt to investigate the role of a VR-assisted course in
developing academic oral presentation competence, as well as
alleviating foreign language anxiety. The participants of this
qualitative case study were 5 PhD students who attended a 6-
session course in which they could collaboratively practice their
academic oral presentation skills in Alzahra VR Academy (1.0), a
self-designed interactive virtually simulated learning
environment. In addition to the audio-recorded class observations,
semi-structured interviews were conducted before and after the
course, and the learners submitted reflection notes. The results
indicated that practicing in the collaborative virtual learning
environment of the course contributed to not only improving the
participants’ academic oral presentation skills, but also lessening
their foreign language anxiety. The findings can have beneficial
implications for English Language Teaching practitioners, as well
as other educators concerned with promoting oral presentation
skills.
Keywords—oral presentation, collaborative learning, English
language teaching, foreign language anxiety, virtual reality
I.INTRODUCTION
In order to be deemed as competent members of the
academia, researchers need to be capable of sharing the findings
of their studies via publishing papers and attending scientific
conferences [1]-[2]. Academic oral presentation skills allow
academicians to showcase their expertise and communicate
effectively with the academic community [3]-[4]. Various
studies have examined different aspects of this multi-faceted
competence [5]-[6].
Meanwhile, virtual reality, as a kind of immersive
technology, has drawn the attention of researchers and
practitioners in the field of language teaching and learning [7]-
[9]. Due to its affordances such as immersion, interaction and
presence, which are highly aligned with SLA theories such as
constructivism, situated learning and experiential learning,