Enhancing meaningful oral interaction in Second Life

The European project NIFLAR (Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research) aims to make foreign language learning and teaching processes more substantial and effective, by promoting blended learning. A combination of formal face-to-face language courses in a classroom setting, with possibilities for foreign language learners to engage in meaningful interaction with native peers (in our case, pre-service teachers) in virtual environments, can contribute to enrich educational contexts. One of the environments the project is using is Second Life, a 3D multi-user virtual environment that offers opportunities for stimulating contextualised oral language use and action learning. Following task based language teaching approaches (Ellis, 2003; Norris, 2009), tasks which take into account the affordances of the specific environment for enhancing meaningful interaction have been developed and piloted. In this paper, we (1) look at pedagogical criteria for task development in Second Life, (2) show examples of tasks, and (3) present preliminary results of the research being conducted on the added value of implementing these technologies within a sound pedagogical approach in language teaching.