We argue that tasks with a physical and spatial character undertaken in social
virtual reality environments can elicit the use of language in the situated mode, and that this type of language is relatively neglected in the typical communicative language classroom.
We report on a study of an escape-room style task implemented as part of a virtual exchange programme between Trinity College Dublin and the University of Hildesheim. We propose and illustrate a taxonomy of functions of situated language which occur in recorded interactions among student teams split between the partner sites.