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Virtual exchange projects have become an effective pedagogical method to support students' development of intercultural language competence. High-immersion experiences in Virtual Reality (VR) may offer an environment which is conducive to developing such competence. This paper reports on a pilot study carried out with two groups of university students (N=30) in the Netherlands and Germany. The students, involved in a virtual exchange using VR headsets, completed three tasks collaboratively. The aim of the study was to investigate participants' perception regarding (1) their collaboration with foreign peers within the VR setting and (2) the perceived usefulness of the tool. The researchers employed questionnaires and conducted interviews and focus groups. The audio recording transcripts from the VR encounters and students' reflective journals provide further data to triangulate the results. This pilot study provides first results with regard to virtual exchanges carried out in high-immersion VR. [For the complete volume, "CALL for Widening Participation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2020 (28th, Online, August 20-21, 2020)," see ED610330.]

Social Virtual Reality (VR) applications enable real-time interpersonal conversation and allow users to perform activities together. They have the potential of changing the ways learners practise speaking a foreign language. Following a previous study (Jauregi Ondarra, Gruber, & Canto, 2020), we designed the present study to explore how presence, immersion, and interactivity affect overall social experience. Students from Germany and the Netherlands engaged in High-immersion VR (HiVR) virtual exchange sessions, using Spanish as a lingua franca at A2 level. International dyads carried out four interaction tasks in AltspaceVR, using head-mounted devices. To examine students' HiVR virtual exchange experiences, different sources of data were gathered: questionnaires, reflection diaries, recordings, and focus group interviews. The preliminary results, based on the surveys and reflection journals, show that students liked to use a social VR app to communicate in the target language with peers from other countries, as they felt completely immersed and co-present in the social interactive VR space. This might enhance engagement and lower anxiety levels. [For the complete volume, "CALL and Professionalisation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2021 (29th, Online, August 26-27, 2021)," see ED616972.]

Motivational factors play an important role in (language) learning processes and research indicates that this is also true for telecollaboration exchanges (Jauregi, de Graaff, van den Bergh, & Kriz, 2012; Melchor-Couto, 2017; in press). This short paper will introduce a study into how motivational factors play a role in telecollaboration exchanges by teenagers depending on the interaction constellation, the tools being used, and the telecollaborative experience. A total of 202 foreign language learners from different European countries took part in telecollaboration activities. All participants carried out an average of four telecollaborative sessions either by written chat or by video communication. Data from a survey measuring motivational factors, including self-efficacy beliefs, motivation, and anxiety, was gathered after every session. A small number of pupils were also interviewed on aspects related to motivation and anxiety. The results show: (1) a significant decrease in anxiety across conditions as sessions progress, especially for those communicating in Lingua Franca (LF) constellations using chat; (2) that pupils interacting with Native Speakers (NSs) seem to be the most confident concerning their perception of competence; and (3) that those communicating with NSs were significantly more positive about the learning potential of communicating with NSs. [For the complete volume, see ED578177.]

The Erasmus+ TeCoLa project (2016-2019) aims to develop and test innovative gamified telecollaboration approaches for secondary schools that address issues of learning diversity in intercultural and Content Integrated Language Learning (CLIL) and teaching. Authentic task-based transnational interactions among peers from different socio-cultural, educational and language backgrounds are at the very heart of the learning process, using telecollaboration as a way to communicate and collaborate. In this paper we will shortly describe the project's foci and will elaborate on the teacher training programme that has been designed on the basis of the teachers' needs and on a sound conceptualisation of telecollaboration tasks that are useful, enjoyable, and meaningful. [For the complete volume, see ED578177.]

This paper explores the role of coaching in enhancing teachers' key competences for integrating Telecollaboration (TC) in their language course. A total of 23 secondary school teachers participated in this case study as part of the EU-funded project TILA. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered via two surveys, the first one measuring coaching satisfaction and a second one tackling teacher competences. The results show that teachers highly value coaching to integrate complex pedagogical innovations in their teaching. Participants reported that coaching contributed to an improvement of key competences necessary to implement TC exchanges successfully. [For the complete volume, see ED571330.]

Telecollaboration for Intercultural Language Acquisition (TILA), is an EU-funded project within the Lifelong Learning Programme that will run between January 2013 and June 2015. TILA's overall objectives are: (1) to innovate, enrich and make foreign language teaching programmes more attractive and effective by encouraging the implementation of telecollaboration activities in secondary schools across Europe; (2) to assist teachers and teacher training programmes in developing information and communications technology (ICT) literacy skills as well as organisational, pedagogical and intercultural competences to guarantee adequate integration of telecollaboration practices; and (3) to study the added value that telecollaboration may bring to language learning in terms of intercultural understanding and motivation amongst younger learners. Our aim in this (albeit short) paper is to introduce the project, its background and outline the specific teaching needs of our participants with regards to languages and technology. [For full proceedings, see ED565044.]

Our contribution focuses on synchronous oral telecollaboration in secondary schools. With reference to the EU project TILA, aspects of task design and implementation are discussed against the backdrop of issues of technological quality in connection with class organisation in computer labs. Case study evidence is provided in favour of the integration of telecollaborative out-of-class activities. [For full proceedings, see ED565087.]

Our proposal describes ISPY, a multilateral European K2 language project based on the development of an Online Networking Platform for Language Learning (http://www.ispy-project.com/). Supported by the Lifelong Learning European Programme, the platform aims to help young adults across Europe, secondary and vocational school programs, learn a new language and gain insights into the cultural knowledge implicit to those languages. Conducted by the University of Wolverhampton in collaboration with five other countries in Europe (Spain, Poland, Netherlands, Germany and Romania), the project will promote interaction between learners from different countries who will partly work together to learn a new language via a set of spy missions promoting problem-solving challenges, deductive tasks and collaboration through extension activities in the Moodle platform. The ISPY platform can be used to support face to face in class teaching or outside instruction to enhance language acquisition. It is designed in short scenes in flash movies and comprises a set of ten espionage missions. Available in each of the target languages, all of these multimedia pills consist of a range of activities including photo stories, video presentations, Webquests, quizzes, listening and extended tasks that call for collaboration through a moderated forum. Each country will also have the option to add extra activities in a Moodle application created purposely for the project, additional tasks which, in essence, are new spy missions for those who have already been awarded as "Qualified" spies. [For the complete volume, see ED574893.]

For the first time, the annual conference of the European Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (EUROCALL) took place in Sweden. The conference took place at the Faculty of Education on historic ground on the old fortification walls of Carolus Dux from the 17th century right in the centre of the city. This year's host comprised the University of Gothenburg in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology. The local committee members represented three collaborating institutions: "Faculty of Education, the University of Gothenburg"; "Department of Languages and Literatures, the University of Gothenburg"; and "Division for Language and Communication, Chalmers University of Technology." This year's conference theme was "CALL: using, learning, knowing." The conference seeked to establish the current state of the art, how using technologies shape what and how we learn, and what we consider we know from research and development within CALL. These three dimensions are in a continuous fux and interplay as an upward spiral, contributing together to create a dynamic learning experience for the student. There were presentations presented at the conference. 59 of these were submitted as extended papers and appear in this volume of proceedings. An author index is included. (Individual papers contain references.)