Affordance refers to the opportunity available to a learning activity. Taking affordance as a theoretical and analytical construct, this exploratory study investigates learners' attitudes and the opportunities WeChat may provide for Chinese cultural knowledge (CCK) learning. The aim is to find out the potential new affordances and compare learners…

The UK government has been called on to reform the Visitor immigration route by increasing the length of time short-term exchange students are permitted to stay in the UK from six months to one academic year. The contribution of international students to the UK is celebrated and discussed within the higher education sector. However, not as much…

This study examines the influence of pre-departure proficiency on English as a second language (L2) oral development after a semester studying abroad in two distinct learning contexts. The data analysed were collected from tertiary level students (N = 33) who undertook an ERASMUS exchange semester in a European country where English was either the…

The aim of this study is to compare how two different Virtual Exchanges (VE) contribute to language learning in a Japanese university context. Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) using VE has been a focus in this study. There are huge advantages of using technology in language teaching such as increasing language use opportunities, feedback, and…

The present study investigates the effects of two subsequent learning contexts, formal instruction (FI) at home and a 3-month stay abroad (SA), on vocabulary acquisition in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing and speaking. Data were collected from 30 Catalan/Spanish learners of English before and after each learning period using a written…

The personal experiences of three of the authors of this document as Au Pairs in the United States exposed some issues related to social justice and discrimination that made the participants reflect on their identity as speakers and future teachers of English. This article shares, analyzes and interprets these reflections collaboratively in search…

This study looks into the effect of L2 learning context and different types of L2 exposure on changes in the use of communication strategies (CS). Previous findings on the possible effects of study abroad (SA) experiences on the development of CS do not allow for a clear conclusion on the issue. The present study specifically compares the effects…

With the present situation of economic globalization, simple inter-flows of information within and between countries have become standard to meet the development needs of college and university students, who now require and demand intercultural communication to improve their understanding of the globalized world. In recent years, online platforms…

In this paper we explore and identify emerging patterns of synchronous digital discourse trajectories between dyads of native (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS), with a particular focus on (absence of) negotiated interaction. We will present a new model of L2 learning interaction that is a schematic representation of two main types of hearer…

This study measured changes in cultural awareness levels between two groups of US students in their third semester of a Spanish class. One group (experimental group) collaborated via Skype with a group of English language learners from a Colombian university and the other group (control group) did not. The experimental group met seven times during…

This chapter reports the challenges that both the students and the teachers experienced in a telecollaborative project between a Japanese university and an American university. In this semester-long project, the students in groups of three to five from both universities worked collectively mainly asynchronously and in occasional synchronous…

This case study reports on an Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange (E+VE) course at the University of Bordeaux. VE enables students to develop communication skills in an English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) environment (Helm, 2016; Kohn & Hoffstaedter, 2017). The present study reports on student language and content learning experiences through E+VE, where…

This article examines personality and participation in an online intercultural exchange (OIE) between 57 university students in Japan (n = 28) and Taiwan (n = 29). The two-month OIE used Facebook (FB) as the medium of communication. During the online exchange, participants communicated linguistically using English as their common language and…

This study examines the effectiveness of a specially designed intervention in changing preservice teacher beliefs about the education of linguistically diverse students. The experiment involved a semester-long online letter exchange with English learner (EL) pen pal partners from two public schools. The research questions included: What effect did…

The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the views of exchange students from Japan about their sojourn experiences at an American university. The participants were eight exchange students from Japan (four males and four females). This descriptive-qualitative study was conceptualized within sojourner theory (Siu, 1952). The data…