This paper describes the author's experience with a pilot course of Italian in SL®[superscript 2]. The course is part of a PhD research on "Exploring the potential of virtual worlds to promote Intercultural Awareness in students learning Italian as a Foreign Language." In the paper the author will justify her choice of virtual worlds for…

It was found in the two-year study reported in this article that a single collaborative language lesson using "Second Life" can result in a statistically significant increase in student self-efficacy beliefs across a range of specific and general language skills. However, students with different "real life" prior experience…

The aims of this research were to develop guidelines for designing interaction tasks for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) and to investigate the attitudes of CFL learners toward a full CFL class in Second Life (SL). Three research questions were addressed in this research: (1) what are the attitudes of CFL learners toward the…

The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) is an international, non-profit educational organization. The Association's purpose is to advance the knowledge, theory, and quality of teaching and learning at all levels with information technology. "E-Learn 2016: World Conference on E-Learning" took place in…

This study contributes to the research on learner autonomy by examining the relationship between Little's (1991) notions of "independent action" and "decision-making", input, and L2 production in computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Operationalizing "independent action" and "decision-making" with Dam's (1995) definition that focuses on…

This report includes three papers that address critical "next generation" issues in assessment policy that can help to guide the choices made about system design: computer adaptive assessments, assessment of English learners and assessing science. None of these topics has received the attention that it deserves in the current debate on assessment…

This article reports an exploratory study carried out at a public university in Bogotá, Colombia, with two indigenous students who took a level I virtual English-course during the second term of 2008 and the first term of 2009. The aim was to analyse their attitudes towards the learning of English through the virtual modality. Interviews,…

This paper presents further innovative use of virtual worlds under the pilot stages of ASSIS (A Second Step in Second Life), a project funded by Umea University. One of the aims of the project is to make use of the affordances offered by Second Life in order to raise sociolinguistic language awareness among teacher trainees and other students…

Organizing and implementing telecollaboration projects in foreign language curricula is not an easy endeavour (Belz & Thorne, 2006; Guth & Helm, 2010), as pedagogical, organizational and technical issues have to be addressed before cross-cultural interaction sessions can be carried out (O'Dowd & Ritter, 2006). These issues make many teaching…

Researchers have highlighted the benefits of using virtual worlds such as Second Life in education, but they have also forewarned educators of potential drawbacks. Understanding how virtual worlds work, including their capabilities and limitations, empowers educators to make better decisions regarding their relevance to learning and teaching. This…

This paper presents an overview of the research conducted within a funded Comenius project which aims at developing a virtual European CLIL Resource Centre for Web 2.0 Education. E-CLIL focuses on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), creativity and multiculturalism through digital resources. In this sense, our prior research on CLIL…

This study analyzes the user chat logs and other artifacts of a virtual world, "Quest Atlantis" (QA), and proposes the concept of Negotiation for Action (NfA) to explain how interaction, specifically, avatar-embodied collaboration between native English speakers and nonnative English speakers, provided resources for English language acquisition.…

Over the last decade, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a form of narrative often involving multiple media and gaming elements to tell a story that might be affected by participants' actions, have been used in the marketing and promotion of a number of entertainment related products such as films, computer games and music. This paper discusses the…

This paper reports on an exploratory case study that investigates the synchronous interaction of intermediate level EFL learners in the 3D virtual world "Second Life." The subjects took part in three seventy-minute chat sessions that involved the use of affordances provided by a purpose-built world within this environment. Analysis of the data…

This article reviews current research on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in second language (L2) learning. Its purpose is to investigate the theoretical perspectives framing it, to identify some of the benefits of using Web 2.0 technologies in L2 learning, and to discuss some of the limitations. The review reveals that blogs and wikis have been…