Research suggests that in linguistically and socially diverse classrooms, teachers should draw on their students' multilingual repertoires. Although several approaches to use students' home languages exist, the accessibility of this knowledge among teachers is still limited. Recently, a holistic approach has been put forward to address the needs…

This article attempts to shed some light on the possible learning benefits for language acquisition and intercultural development of authentic social interaction with expert peers through computer mediated communication (CMC) tools. The environments used in this study are video communication and the 3D virtual world "Second Life." For…