Summary


Online Intercultural Exchanges offer a form of computer-mediated learning whereby students from geographically remote classes work together online (in pairs or small groups) on learning tasks developed by teachers or educational facilitators. They allow students to have a meaningful intercultural experience as part of their education, increasing mutual understanding and global citizenship. Besides, our students’ feedback has also shown that this pedagogy has helped them to boost their mental health and wellbeing. This was particularly evident during the Covid-19 lockdown.


Theory


There is a vast corpus of literature that demonstrates the theory and benefits behind this practice. Educators can use OIE to address current challenges in university contexts such as internationalisation, virtual mobility and intercultural foreign language education. Virtual Exchange combines the deep impact of intercultural dialogue and exchange with the broad reach of digital technology.

We recommend the following resources:

  • Evolve Project: EVOLVE (Evidence-Validated Online Learning through Virtual Exchange) aims to mainstream Virtual Exchange (VE) as an innovative form of collaborative international learning across disciplines in Higher Education (HE) institutions in Europe and beyond. They offer training for educators, expert views and very useful resources.
  • Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange: provides opportunities for universities to enhance their internationalisation strategy with a range of opportunities that are freely available to students and staff.
  • Robert O'Dowd and Tim Lewis (eds.), Online Intercultural Exchange. Policy, Pedagogy, Practice (New York/London: Routledge, 2018).
  • Warwick TEALfest 2020. Talk by Teresa MacKinnon (SMLC), ‘Communication in the 21st century. How can Virtual Exchange help you’.

Measurable Benefits


  1. Learner/student-led.
  2. Intercultural and International student communication and collaboration.
  3. Collective inquiry.
  4. Digital skills.
  5. Flexibility.
  6. According to our students’ feedback: OIE is ‘Enriching, eye-opening and highly enjoyable’

How it Works


  1. Training for educators.
  2. University/institutions agreements or partnerships.
  3. OIE should be embedded in the curriculum.
  4. Collaboration between facilitators.
  5. Flexibility for students.

Practical Example


Practical Example: Online Intercultural Exchange between Warwick University and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia.

There are different models of Virtual Exchanges. The main option we have been applying in our courses offers a more autonomous and independent approach and interaction. My colleague Clemencia Rodas-Perez initiated a partnership with the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia six years ago. Thanks to this partnership, I have been able to establish and consolidate this Virtual Exchange between my students in the module HP101 Modern Spanish Language and their students of English. It requires a lot of work from the facilitators, mainly at the beginning, but the benefits for our students are multiple. Once we pair our students, they can decide how they want to communicate, which channels, platforms and languages they want to use. We ask them to keep weekly interactions and to have face to face chats three times per term, if possible. They need to discuss some of the topics we covered in the module and they need to collaborate in a research project about ‘Speech Acts in English and Spanish’. Students have to reflect about their linguistic and cultural learning, as well as about their findings in their e-portfolios, as part of their assessment.

This pedagogy was extremely beneficial during the lockdown. We are thrilled to say we connected almost 100 students in total in only a few days. The key here was flexibility: once students were paired and officially introduced, they could decide their channels and language(s) of communication, as well as their topics of conversation. Even if they did not know each other and they were living miles apart, they all had something in common: they all were in lockdown. Our students’ reflections and feedback confirm that their intercultural exchanges helped them with their confidence, their linguistic, pragmatic and cultural awareness and their studies overall. Topics were very varied: from TV series and Easter celebrations to populism and political propaganda in the UK, Spain and Latin America. They all discussed COVID-19, how it had affected their day-to-day lives, and the varying approaches that their respective governments were taking to tackle the pandemic. Moreover, students also explained how these exchanges helped them to cope with the lockdown more generally, while boosting their mental health and wellbeing: ‘It was nice to be able to talk to someone freely. Sometimes I can struggle opening up about mental health with people I know in real life from university, just because I worry about being judged, but this wasn’t the case with my Colombian exchange partner. It was the opposite in fact!’


How it Works


This some of our students’ feedback:

"I’d say it made me feel more confident for the exams. I definitely noticed a difference in my Spanish and I felt more confident that what I was saying was correct. Describing the experience in three adjectives, I would say: eye-opening, informative, fun. The experience was wholly positive and I’m glad I’ve been able to take part in it!"

"While I practised my Spanish and asked questions about her way of life, she practised her English and learnt about British culture – when we messaged one another over Easter, for example, it proved to be an interesting insight for both of us as to how such celebrations vary from one side of the globe to the other. When we first contacted one another, we did talk about COVID-19; we talked about how it had affected our day-to-day lives, and the varying approaches that our respective governments were taking to tackle the pandemic."

"I would definitely recommend having a virtual exchange partner if you can, because I didn't just improve my Spanish, but I also gained a life long friend."

"We also spoke about our university lives and how they are different, including topics such as accommodation, transport to and from the university, plus our different timetables. It definitely helped me because we spoke about how we were coping during lockdown and it was almost reassuring to see that we’re all very much in the same boat. We were able to discuss our different coping mechanisms (like setting a timetabled routine for yourself, limiting time looking at social media and the news, etc.) which was very beneficial. It was nice to be able to talk to someone freely. Sometimes I can struggle opening up about mental health with people I know in real life from university, just because I worry about being judged, but this wasn’t the case with my exchange partner. It was the opposite in fact!"


Individual Perspective


As mentioned above, creating and establishing a virtual exchange takes time and effort. It needs to adapt to our students’ needs and our module’s aims and outcomes, so this may take a bit of time. However, the benefits and advantages are numerous. I completely recommend it.