Strategies for the use of a virtual environment in second language learning

Abstract

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has highlighted since 1948 the importance of learning a second language because of its professional, social, cultural, academic, and even personal potentials. Understanding that it moves towards a technological society, the processes of teaching and learning break the traditional schemes and incorporate new virtual learning environments that allow the implementation of technologies. By learning a foreign language, it tends to “pass” in somehow the knowledge about the structures and features of the mother tongue into the foreign language. This influence of the mother tongue on the foreign language is called “transfer” which often impedes production in the second language. The purpose of this research is to create a virtual learning environment in the English modules using Moodle for 114 UNEMI students of Health and Engineering Sciences, who are considered part of the generation “Y” through a single, factual and intrinsic case study, with a descriptive, heuristic and inductive level. The results of this research determined that the use of ICT tools when learning a second language presents greater opportunities for the teacher and students because they both can be separated with respect to the synchrony and this is not an obstacle, so learning is conducted with success; this support tool helps the acquired knowledge to become perfect with practice.