Chapter 14: Computer Assisted Language Learning in the New Frontier: Exploring the i4

This chapter is intended to serve as a position paper and a rallying cry to all private and educational institutions to consider how synchronous virtual learning environments can be used to teach languages for social justice purposes—a pedagogical paradigm drawn from what the author has called i4— the theoretical space where three discourses overlap: technology enhanced learning, language education, and teaching for social justice. These areas are proposed to be complementary in terms of using language-based technology and pedagogy to a socially just end. The importance of language and culture is highlighted as well. Suggestions are offered on how corporate partnerships, language teachers, faculties of education, and language program designers can facilitate the use of virtual language classrooms to revitalize endangered languages (such as those of Canada’s aboriginal peoples) and to prevent language shift in diasporic communities.