1. Aplicaciones de Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés - Comisión 4-691 – UTN
Lisandro Paz
Handbook of Research on Web 2.0 and Second Language Learning
Chapter VIII: The Use of Communities in a Virtual Learning Environment
This chapter deals with the possibilities that project-based approaches offer graduate
students to help them develop the competencies and skills they need to succeed in company
performance in English. It discusses a project focused on the development of a Web 2.0
learning community in a virtual learning environment (VLE). The authors assert that this
Google community led to “(i) intensive interaction in discussion forums in the target
language, (ii) confidence building as to spoken and written performance in an international
business setting, (iii) meaningful content learning, and (iv) successful project management
skills.” (Baten, Bouckaert & Yingli, 2009) User-friendliness and interaction are listed as the
most prominent strengths of Google communities.
The authors argue that companies crave for employees who can learn fast in an ever-
changing environment of diversity, and also across different cultures: “non-linguistic
graduates need to enhance their opportunities not only to enter the labor market but also to
acquire lifelong learning skills in their professional lives.” (Baten, Bouckaert & Yingli,
2009) The results of the project point to the relevance of acquiring both language and
intercultural competences and highlight the importance of performing professional tasks
and functions in foreign languages.
It is stated that teachers of language of specific purposes have to take into account that
language is only a tool, contrasting it against the higher-order importance of interpersonal
sensitivity, the “prerequisite for all communication.” Although English is the
internationally accepted lingua franca, people should try to preserve their own national
cultures and use different languages for different purposes. Beaudin-Lecours maintains that
“exploring the opportunities presented by Web 2.0 should be part of the methodological
approach at university to facilitate a customized and oriented attitude in professional life.”
Google, for example, provides users with a vast array of tools to heighten electronic
communication, such as Google groups, communities and Google Docs, thus motivating
the multiple uses of languages.

2. Aplicaciones de Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés - Comisión 4-691 – UTN
Lisandro Paz
An illuminating example is the Venus project of K.U. Leuven (VENUS, 2007), in which
students effectively tackled videoconferencing using Flashmeeting. In this way, they found
that “the Internet in their daily lives is not a library in which the content is stacked in layers,
as are their courses, but indeed a web of hyperlinks to which they contribute their content,
in their own way.” (Baten, Bouckaert & Yingli, 2009) As Peter Hinssen claims (2006), in a
Web 2.0 environment “content is king”, being customers themselves the ones who write
and create.
To sum up, by stimulating interactive, learner pulled learning, English communicative
competences in international businesses contexts will develop together with a highly
valuable familiarization with the means and media of business communication. Combining
the tools of language and modern technology, students can effectively communicate with
companies, fulfilling all kinds of different, everyday business functions.
References
Baten, Bouckaert & Yingli, (2009). The Use of Communities in a Virtual Learning
Environment, Handbook of Research on Web 2.0 and Second Language Learning (pp.
137-155).
Beaudin-Lecours, M. (2008). Le Web 2.0. Clic, Bulletin Collégial des technologies de
l’information et des communications, Numero 66, Janvier 2008.
Hinssen, P. (2006). Web 2.0. Recorded talk held at K.U. Leuven, 8 November 2006.
VENUS (2007). Creating new opportunities for learning. How to organize international
seminars open to citizens using advances in ICT (2007).

3. Aplicaciones de Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés - Comisión 4-691 – UTN
Lisandro Paz
In the not-so-distant future, of all the different tools that technology will provide English
language teaching with, online learning is perhaps the most valuable one for us, citizens of big
metropolises. Time being such a precious and scarce resource these days, and traveling times and
difficulties increasing year after year, the possibility of having access to an online course from our
places of residence or work is virtually priceless. Second Life (the most popular and
comprehensive virtual reality world), for example, already offers a vast array of tools that
efficiently mimic the real-world ones found in an average classroom, as well as a social
environment that meets learners’ intrapersonal needs.