What is Task-Based Activity

This chapter offers an innovative approach for implementing telecollaborative activities in order to enable students to connect with peers in real-time, with the goal of creating a micro-immersion experience called a “Virtual Language Exchange”. This chapter describes and compares two intermediate Spanish classes participating in Virtual Language Exchanges via Skype: one paired with peers from the target language and culture, and one paired with peers from within the class itself. Students from both groups participate in meaningful interactions in the target language in order to complete the assigned task-based activities. The chapter argues that finding new ways to bring the target language to life by using technology, like the Virtual Language Exchange experience described here, can benefit students' foreign language development in multiple ways.