The pandemic-induced shift to online learning has increased the relevance of Online Intercultural Exchanges (OIE) as a means to navigate student mobility challenges. Our study investigates the role of OIE in the internationalisation of higher education, focusing on how students' perceptions of the benefits of internationalisation through OIE have…

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…

The concept of successful participation is context-dependent. Learners have different definitions, which are subject to potential tension in the manner of participation that affects other aspects of the interaction. Drawing on activity theory (Vygotsky, 1987), the present study analyzes tensions that emerged during a six-week telecollaborative…

This study explores how Japanese EFL students engaged in translingual practices during a telecollaborative project that connected two college classrooms in the US and Japan. The project aimed at encouraging the students' creative uses of languages, promoting an appreciation for their multiple linguistic resources, and nurturing their sense of…

In this paper the results of an online survey (n=210) regarding the usefulness of Facebook for informal L2 learning will be presented. Participants were individual Facebook users who study either German (n=118) or Japanese (n=92). By using a combination of open and closed questions, the mostly quantitative findings of the survey indicate that for…

Drawing from activity theory and its notion of contradictions of various levels, the present study analyzes tensions that emerged during a six-week telecollaborative project between American learners of Japanese (AMU students) and Japanese learners of English (JPU students) regarding expectations and manners of interaction. Transpacific groups of…

Telecollaboration has been considered to have great potential for the development of L2 learners' intercultural communicative competence (ICC), so an examination of what benefits L2 learners receive through telecollaboration is necessary. Also, L2 learners' use of culturally specific expressions, such as proverbs, has not been adequately…

This paper seeks to expand the translingual tradition through a stronger focus on 'the political implications' -- a way to understand the ordinariness of everyday resistance. When people engage in linguistic resistance in everyday life, it might have mixed motivations; it might not be theoretically informed; it might draw from their cultures of…

The internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II lies at the heart of ongoing discussions in American social studies. We analyzed inputs of members of the Yahoo! Answers Q&A online community following students' questions dealing with differential treatment of Japanese and German and Italian American citizens during World War…

Like other anglophone countries, the UK is experiencing a language 'crisis', in that fewer and fewer students opt to study a foreign language (FL) beyond the compulsory phase, and that the UK's language skills do not match its economic needs. Despite strong statements of commitments to increase FL uptake, decline in FL uptake in the UK's four…

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…

Although a number of studies have investigated study abroad or telecollaboration separately, none to date has included both methods with the aim of differentiating their impacts on the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Using mixed methods, the current study compared foreign language learners' perceived ICC development…

The use of computers as an educational tool has become very popular in the context of language teaching and learning. Research into computer mediated communication (CMC) in a Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learning and teaching context can take advantage of various pedagogical possibilities, just as in the English classroom. This study…

This study investigates an instantiation of a 3D virtual world-based Japanese learning curriculum within the context of a Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) classroom. Through a mixed-method case study approach, participants' natural acquisition of Japanese in a 3D virtual environment was examined. In the present study, four sources of data from…

With the spread of the Internet, students now have greater opportunities to use Japanese outside of the classroom. For example, they can interact with other Japanese speakers through instant messaging or social networking, or utilize online dictionaries and translation tools to decipher websites in ways that would be impossible with traditional…