Connecting with the rest of the world

Teaching French, one of my goals is to get students to speak in the target language. Ideally, I want my students to understands the value of learning another language: communication, interaction, connections. I am trying to get away from the "classroom/prepared" interactions, and bring students closer to more relevant & authentic interactions.

Learning French while living in Thailand may seem limiting at times, especially when my 15 French B students have been in the same class for 3 years, meeting 4 hours a week. I encourage students to use French amongst themselves in the classroom, but once they step outside, they go back to English.
Only a hand full will make a connection outside the classroom (for example their friend is a french speaker or they use the language to speak in code in front of others), but for many, French is only during period 6.

So my I challenge is to motivate students to use French to communicate with others.
I am hoping that the new technologies of web 2.0 will enable my students to connect with other French speaker or French learners here and there.