GROUNDING L2 LEARNING IN SOCIAL PRACTICE THEORY: THE VIRGIL2 SERIOUS GAME A. Signa, S. Perna, M. La Rocca, M. Allegra, G. Città, V. Dal Grande, M. Gentile, D. La Guardia, S. Ottaviano Institute for Educational Technology, National Research Council of Italy (ITALY) Abstract The lack of knowledge destination-countries languages is one of the main reason for the social exclusion of immigrants. In this paper, we will introduce VIRGIL2, a Serious Game (SG) developed in the context of the Digital Innovation for Social Inclusion (DISI) Erasmus+ project and designed to enhance learning of a foreign language as L2. Moreover, VIRGIL2, within its L2 learning actvities, reproducing real-life scenarios and exploiting situated learning and Social Practice Theory (SPT) allows learners also to acquire knowledge on aspects and dynamics related to the social contexts in which they are integrating. Keywords: Serious Games, L2, Situated Learning. 1 INTRODUCTION Immigration is an ever-increasing phenomenon in the European Union (EU) countries: reports state that immigration to the EU from non-member countries was 2.4 million in 2017[1]. While international migration can be beneficial in destination countries (e.g. as a tool to solve labour market shortages), social inclusion of the immigrants into the fabric of society is a problem, mainly caused by the lack of knowledge of the destination countries’ language. Many factors come into play in the success of both the learning of the new language and the acquisition of a high level of proficiency in it. Pre-migration exposure to the language, age of arrival and linguistic distance between the native language and the new language are all important [2]. Moreover, many immigrants learn the new language “by doing”, through daily exposure rather than learning it in a structured context [2]. We believe that both easing the access to educational content, making it available regardless of the geographic location, and providing a context that replicates daily activities, while also adapting the learning experience to the learner’s specific level of proficiency, can be highly beneficial. In this paper, we will introduce VIRGIL2 (VIRtual Guide for Immigrants in L2), a Serious Game (SG) developed in the context of the Digital Innovation for Social Inclusion (DISI) Erasmus+ project to support and enhance the teaching of a second language to immigrants, implementing the situated learning approach through a specific theoretical framework: The Social Practice Theory (SPT) [3,4]. VIRGIL2 aims to be a tool both for the teachers, by easing the use and implementation of situated learning, and for the students, by providing useful and user-friendly access to educational contents. 2 SOCIAL PRACTICE THEORY AND SITUATED LEARNING As introduced above, the framework in which we ground the learning experience is the SPT. A social practice can be described as a set of socially organized and accepted actions that are mutually linked in everyone’s daily life. These can also be described as a set of social activities that are conveyed through different means (both linguistic and not), are situated in specific real social contexts, are materially embedded and involve different actors with different roles (and thus are distributed among different agents). Moreover, social practices are interconnected through the cultural knowledge of the specific social context in which they happen, and therefore they may also require essential paralinguistic elements like facial expressions, intonation and gestures. In the context of this framework, language can be described as a social tool and the process of learning a language can be seen as emerging from the nexus of different social activities tied to our daily lives. In fact, in Social Practice Theory each language is deeply social and actional (where with actional we mean that it contributes to carrying out actions in the world through social interaction routines) [5]. Within this perspective the knowledge gained by students is context-based and can be transferred only to similar situations. Learning becomes the result of social processes including procedural knowledge, communicating with others and observing the environment; so the learning process is not disconnected from actual actions but it exists in a social environment consisting of actors, actions and situations [6]. From this point of view, learning as situated Proceedings of EDULEARN19 Conference 1st-3rd July 2019, Palma, Mallorca, Spain ISBN: 978-84-09-12031-4 5096