Gather.Town for pre-service teachers of English as a Foreign Language: Learning outcomes and virtual presence

The integration of technology into preservice English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) education has been widely explored, but there has been a lack of investigation into how the latest virtual platform such as Gather.Town affects preservice teachers in terms of their competence in lesson planning and perceived presence. The purpose of this study was to address this concern through the adoption of Gather.Town-supported virtual settings to engage pre-service English language teachers. Participants in the study were 46 English major juniors enrolled in a pre-service EFL course at a private university in central Taiwan. Lesson planning competence was examined, with the first task engaging the participants in conventional group discussion while the second one requiring the participants to interact on Gather.Town. The results of their lesson planning and responses to the Multiple Presence Scale revealed that high achievers significantly enhanced their lesson planning performances when they used Gather.Town for interaction. Additionally, high achievers reported a significant positive experience in terms of physical presence, social presence, and self-presence.