The Epistemology of Skill and Knowledge Development to Teach Portuguese in a Virtual Learning Environment

This article explores the underlying processes involved as two experienced Portuguese as a foreign language instructors, who are novices to 3D technologies, became immersed in the epistemology of teaching in a 3D context. The two instructors undertook a challenging initiative to develop and deliver two sections of oral Portuguese in a 3D environment. Through the contingent support of a European community of practitioners, the two instructors explored how the game-based elements and other semiotic resources of SL could be used to enact affordances for the development of goal-oriented tasks, collaborative activities, and interactions in order to guide students in building their oral proficiency in Portuguese. The skill and knowledge development were examined with the trajectories of Compton's framework and epistemological theory where teaching in virtual contexts is contingent upon the construction of technological, pedagogical, and evaluation skills.