Benefits and Challenges of Using Second Life in English Teaching: Experts’ Opinions

This research study aims to depict an evaluation of using Second Life (SL) in English Language Teaching (ELT) at the tertiary level via data collected from experts who have applied this virtual environment as instructors and experienced it in a comprehensive way. The participants selected for the present study were five different experts from different universities located in Turkey. Through structured interviews, the qualitative data from the experts have been collected and analyzed with code and theme identification. According to the data analysis, SL helps learners improve both their speaking and their listening skills, and SL has multiple benefits that each instructor can mold in accordance with the learning and teaching purposes. The challenges can be categorized as technical, financial and user-related ones. The results might be of great value to instructors and curriculum planners who would like to embed Second Life applications into foreign language teaching.