Presentation Designing Accessible Virtual Lessons: Teaching Motion Verbs Through Sound more

Virtual worlds are often used in second language (L2) teaching to visualize motion events and support learning of verbs such as come and go in Japanese. However, most designs rely heavily on visual input, limiting accessibility for visually impaired learners. In light of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which mandates that public institutions ensure equal access to digital instructional materials and services, accessible lesson design has become both a legal and pedagogical priority. This presentation introduces a prototype lesson design that enhances visual representations of motion with systematic auditory cues. In this model, changes in sound—such as increasing volume, directionality, and foreground/background contrast—work alongside visual input to represent movement toward or away from a speaker. The session demonstrates how these cues are carefully mapped onto motion meanings and embedded into a screen-reader-compatible virtual lesson segment. Rather than reporting a completed experimental study, the focus is on instructional design principles and practical implementation. Designed for language teachers, CALL practitioners, and TESOL graduate students, this session offers concrete strategies for creating more accessible technology-enhanced lessons and provides an adaptable framework for incorporating multimodal input into virtual language learning environments.