We demonstrate the power of Variation Theory as an analytical tool used to understand the underlying conceptual structure of mathematics lessons taught by English primary school teachers. We study excerpts of three lessons that are posted on a professional website. We show how lesson analysis using variation allows us to focus on what is made…

This study discusses a design-thinking approach for a virtual exchange intended to introduce pre-service teachers to global collaboration and empowered learning through the use of educational technology. Principles of design-thinking (i.e., empathy, ideation, and testing) were aligned with broader educational goals of culturally responsive…

Virtual Exchange (VE) has grown out of telecollaboration, which originated in the language-teaching field and has now expanded to all areas of knowledge as a collaborative methodology to enhance learning and fostering soft skills and intercultural competences. VE has recently received growing interest from higher education institutions due to the…

Target 4.7 in Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) aims to ensure that education is equally accessible to all genders who are taught to appreciate human rights and cultural diversity as global citizens. Understanding and sympathy for intercultural differences become important in higher education. With a focus on the foundations and dimensions of…

This paper presents a two-year pedagogical, teacher-as-researcher, action research project at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Sousse, Tunisia, which investigates how the integration of the Soliya Connect Program, a facilitated dialogic online exchange programme, with a theoretical course on critical intercultural communication…

With increasing focus placed on global rankings, partnerships, and student mobility, institutions are increasingly embedding internationalisation within their strategic language and approach. This paper examines the four countries of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Viet Nam (CLMV) to explore the challenges and opportunities for institutions in…

The Linguistic Landscape (LL) is a relatively new field which draws from several disciplines such as applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and cultural geography. According to Landry and Bourhis (1997),"the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop…

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…

As Virtual Exchanges (VEs) become more common in foreign language classrooms around the world, teachers are rightly asking 'what will my students be getting from this'? If their students are advanced, they can enter into in-depth interactions thus attaining broader and deeper intercultural knowledge as a minimum, from participation in VE. However,…

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…

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…

This article contributes to the literature on the value of Virtual Exchanges (VEs) in the field of technology-mediated language learning. Specifically, we report on a pilot program for high school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Slovakia and English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in Michigan, USA who engaged in a 10-week,…

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…