Integrating cross-cultural interaction through videocommunication and virtual worlds in foreign language teaching programs: burden or added value?

Abstract

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 practitioners reluctant to try to integrate telecollaboration in their teaching, as they are more aware of the burden such initiatives might impose than of the benefits they might have for language learners. Within the European NIFLAR project we attempted to address the question under which circumstances and for what purposes integrating synchronous collaboration projects through video-communication or Second Life in language teaching might have an added value in language learning, taking organizational and technical issues into account. In order to answer this question different sources of data were gathered and analysed: questionnaires and interviews, oral pre- and post-tests and recordings of interaction sessions. Results show that telecollaboration experiences have an added value on cultural, linguistic, interpersonal and motivational issues.