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This paper describes a research study that investigated foreign language student engagement in reflective practice through reflective portfolios. Over the course of one academic semester, students in an Italian as a foreign language course at an Australian university and selected target language native speaker mentors interacted and collaborated with each other in blended learning mode with the aim of completing two situated and authentic tasks designed according to an authentic learning framework. As part of the project, students wrote their observations on the progress of their collaborative work in a reflective portfolio and participated in individual and guided focus group interviews. The findings suggest that the opportunity to contribute their thoughts in writing in reflective portfolios encouraged students to reflect on their own individual learning processes and to engage in a process of collective reflection and collaborative problem solving.

This paper describes a research study that investigated foreign language students’ collaborative practice in a blended, authentic learning environment. A group of intermediate and advanced level students of Italian at an Australian university interacted and collaborated with each other and with a group of native speaker mentors through a web-based learning management system and in face-to-face mode. As part of the project, students were required to complete two authentic tasks designed according to an authentic learning framework. In order to complete these tasks, students assigned themselves into small collaborative groups and negotiated their roles and responsibilities with little or no intervention from the class teacher apart from the requirement that communication took place in the target language. This paper describes the different phases of the collaborative process and the strategies employed by learners to overcome some of the challenges and problems encountered. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for language educators seeking to support student collaboration and foreign language development in a blended language learning environment.

Actively encouraging foreign language learners to establish a meaningful connection with the target language culture - by engaging in authentic activities with other learners and native speakers in real-world communicative contexts - is a critical goal of foreign language education. This paper describes a design-based research study that investigated how students of Italian at an Australian university engaged with and responded to a web-based learning environment which integrated authentic learning tasks to facilitate social interaction and meaningful collaborative language practice with native speakers of the target language. The findings suggest that the use of the critical elements of authentic activities actively supported student learning across different domains. A major outcome of this research was the development of a set of design principles and guidelines for the design and development of authentic foreign language learning environments that could inform and guide other language educators within their specific educational context.