This chapter provides a general synopsis of the evolution of Virtual Exchange (VE) as it has progressively become more immersed in the paradigms of language teaching approaches. Inevitably, this transformation unfolds in pace to advances in communication technology as the interactional tools are key for facilitating connection between distanced…

Virtual Exchange (VE) is typically set up in an institutional context, which implies the need to verify student learning through assessment. The difficulties in designing and implementing assessment in VE arise principally from the complexity of VE itself, as well as from a combination of institutional and sociocultural factors. This chapter aims…

The development of new media technology facilitates interaction between people of different cultures. However, people from different cultures show different cross-cultural communication behaviors that may influence their communication efficiency, perceived communication experiences, and perceived social presence. This study aimed to explore…

For agentive and influential involvement in online communities, language learners and teachers need to develop critical digital literacy (CDL), conceptualized by Darvin (2017) as an awareness of "how meanings are represented in ways that maintain and reproduce relations of power" (p. 5) and thus privilege some and marginalize others…

Research in intercultural communication studies has demonstrated that social networking (SN) can affect language minority learners' cultural adaptation/identity process. Furthermore, internet usage preferences play an important role in the cultural adaptation of mobility groups. Drawing on these two lines of development, the current paper aims to…

Virtual exchange (VE) is an umbrella term used to refer to the engagement of groups of students in sustained online intercultural interaction and collaboration with international partners under the guidance of their teachers. In the computer-assisted language learning literature, telecollaboration and eTandem approaches to VE have been researched…

With increasing global interconnectivity, effective cross-cultural interaction has become crucial for global citizens. However, learners in non-English speaking countries often lack practical English communicative skills and opportunities for authentic language practice. This study explores the effectiveness of a virtual exchange programme in…

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…

This article presents on a multi-institution project that explains the design and development of Virtual Tabadul, an Arabic and English foreign language exchange program amongst 1,200 U.S. and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) college-aged youth. The program involves faculty, staff, and students at four institutions: Florida International…

As physical mobility finds itself impeded by the COVID-19 crisis, the world witnesses the potential of technology for connecting students who are physically distanced inside and cross-borders. In such scenarios, telecollaboration and virtual exchange have gained increased attention as powerful pedagogical strategies to allow for the continuity of…

This study reports on how the affordances of the WebEx platform were used as multimodality resources during the negotiation of meaning by participants engaged in an English/Spanish eTandem video-conferencing exchange. The exchange involved five dyads of university students with an intermediate level of language proficiency. A total of seven tasks…

Interacting with native speakers in various types of virtual exchanges is becoming increasingly accessible for language learners and teachers around the world. The present study examined the experiences of beginning and intermediate level learners of Spanish in the United States as they interacted weekly with native Spanish speakers over the…

The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented educational challenges. In order to ensure the continuity of formal education and to compensate for interruptions, emergency remote teaching practices were initiated worldwide. Like all other courses, foreign language teaching applied internet technologies as a teaching-learning media during the…

Increasingly prevalent use of technologies such as instant messaging and online chat has transformed our traditional ways of learning and teaching pragmatics. This study presents an example of such transformation by demonstrating how computer-mediated communication (CMC) may be employed as a tool to provide second language (L2) learners…

This study aimed to explore critical cultural awareness improvement of prospective teachers with a transnational virtual exchange project. Within the scope of this study, prospective teachers of English studying at English Language Teaching (ELT) department in Turkey attended a virtual exchange project that was organized with other prospective…