Our principal objective is to explore if interculturality is relevant for the success of a bilateral student mobility program, Mexico-Japan Technical and Academic Exchange Program (MJTAEP). First, the authors explain their methodology and objectives of field work. Second, they situate their analysis within a framework of growing academic…

Purpose: This study aims to examine how teacher candidates (TCs) in Türkiye and the USA navigate their intercultural communication skills in a telecollaboration project. Design/methodology/approach: Forty-eight TCs participated (26 in Türkiye and 22 in the USA) in the study. TCs discussed critical issues in multicultural education on an online…

Empathy is widely perceived and understood as an unquestioned component of Intercultural Competence (IC). The authors see the ability to empathise with others and to see their point of view as an important condition for developing an ethnorelative viewpoint, and therefore consider it important to incorporate activities into the intercultural…

In the context of learning a second language, the passing on of cultural information as a means to further the development of intercultural competences is primarily viewed as being unidirectional--the "native-speaking culture" passing on information to the language learning student. However, in EFL (English as a foreign language)…

Walk a Day in My Shoes is a curricular project designed to provide a starting point for teachers to cultivate cross-cultural understanding among elementary-age students. In this curricular project, students created their own digital stories about a day spent in their shoes. Through photography, writing, and digital storytelling, each student…

In this study, we examined the use of compliments, self-praise, and self-denigration, as exchanged among nonnative English users. This was part of participation in an online cross-cultural exchange project (Ibunka 2019), which involved learners from six countries (Algeria, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and the Netherlands). The aim of the…

While the disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold around the world, one of its most immediate effects -- beyond significant loss of life and livelihood -- has been the exposure of existing weaknesses in various sectors and systems. This is especially evident in higher education, with its growing overreliance on the…

E+VE-SFI (Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange -- Spain, France, Ireland) is a higher-education VE between students from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), and the University of Limerick (UL). Its primary aim is to develop the speaking skills of undergraduates enrolled in foreign language programmes. Running over a…

Reflecting upon their intercultural experiences, with a tool like the "Autobiography of intercultural encounters," may help adolescents become better interculturalists. This research investigates how the use of the Autobiography may allow adolescents develop intercultural competence (IC). Using Byram's framework on which this tool is…

While the research literature is replete with studies on student perspectives and their development of cross-cultural sensitivity, research on the perspectives of educators who host international preservice teachers is woefully lacking. This study seeks to fill that gap by assessing the experiences of 15 educators at an elementary host school in…

This paper concerns a virtual exchange project between the University of Virginia (UVa), United States, and an upper-secondary school in Pavia, Italy. Centred on the question of gender equality, the project has been designed to take place over three years (2018-2021) with a direct reference to Robert O'Dowd's transnational model of virtual…

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…

The globally mobile reality of today's world has made the field of intercultural communication increasingly relevant as people more often find themselves in intercultural situations. As a result, language teachers must be more prepared to work in intercultural contexts, and to teach their own students how to communicate across differences in…

Since 2000, I have been coordinating a web based virtual exchange project, Project Ibunka. Ibunka means different cultures in Japanese. It aims to provide opportunities of authentic interaction among EFL/ESL learners all over the world. The project has been giving English language learners from various countries opportunities to use English for…

E-tandem language exchange is an online learning method that positively influences learners to gain knowledge and improve their linguistic and communicative competences. The main aim of this qualitative research was to analyze the advantages and drawbacks of an institutional, non-integrated e-tandem developed between a group of English learners…