Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) attract worldwide learners from diverse backgrounds and cultures. When learners communicate directly in this multicultural space, there is potential for new cultural practices to be articulated or transcended into a new form of knowledge that blurs cultural boundaries. Our research is attempting to identify…

SNS (Social Networking Sites) are a ubiquitous social space for many, often involving the use of English as a lingua franca in highly multilingual and multicultural settings. This article presents an ethnographic investigation of communication among a group of international students on a popular SNS. The data illustrates the fluid and complex…

A frequently stated aim of the increasing internationalisation of higher education (HE) is the incorporation of intercultural elements. This has recently been conceptualised through the notion of intercultural citizenship with universities promising to equip graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills to engage in global workplaces and…

With the status of English as a global lingua franca (ELF), English is no longer the sole property of its Anglophone native English speakers (NES) problematizing the current dominance of Anglophone cultures and NES in the field of English language teaching (ELT). The notion of intercultural citizenship education offers a critical alternative model…

This article examines the role of cultural awareness (CA) and intercultural awareness (ICA) in classroom theory and practice. CA and ICA can be roughly characterised as an awareness of the role of culture in communication with CA focused on national cultures and ICA on more dynamic and flexible relationships between languages and cultures. There…

The increasingly international orientation of many higher education (HE) institutes and the growing role of English as an academic lingua franca have far-reaching implications for how we conceptualise universities and student mobility. In this paper, it is argued that the complexity and diversity of languages, communities and cultures present in…

Cultural awareness (CA) has emerged over the last few decades as a significant part of conceptualizing the cultural dimension to language teaching. That is, L2 users need to understand L2 communication as a cultural process and to be aware of their own culturally based communicative behaviour and that of others. However, while CA has provided a…

The use of English as a global lingua franca (ELF) raises challenges concerning how we understand the relationship between languages and cultures in intercultural communication. In the dynamic contexts of ELF this relationship needs to be viewed as situated and emergent entailing a new approach to understanding intercultural competence in…

The cultural dimension of foreign and second language use and teaching has risen in prominence since the 1980s. More recently there has been much interest in and debate concerning the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF). However, there has been little empirical investigation into what communication through ELF might mean for an understanding…

With the increasingly significant role that English language teaching (ELT) is playing in Asian contexts, it is important to gain a better understanding of the use of English as a medium of intercultural communication in Asia. In doing so, ELT practices may be better able to adapt themselves to the intercultural communicative needs of local…