Acquisition of language and intercultural competences in tourism and hospitality studies through active experimentation in second life

Abstract

Living in a global world involves not only mastering languages, but also dealing with different habits and values. It becomes critical with students trained to deal with a multicultural public, such as the group of learners from tourism covered by our research. Our proposal aims to analyze whether the virtual world of Second Life (SL) facilitates the development of English for Specific Purposes and the acquisition of intercultural communication. To cover the objective qualitative and quantitative research were conducted along a four-phased in/out SL instruction. Questioning about the differences between the mean score obtained by experimental and control groups shows no significant differences in the acquisition of language regarding face to face and Second Life interaction, but demonstrates a positive tendency in the case of intercultural competences.