Foreign language education for the 21st century: Developing intercultural competence in an online intercultural exchange

As world cultures become increasingly globalized and interconnected, it is critical that colleges across the United States educate students to collaborate across and beyond national boundaries. What does it mean to educate globally literate learners and how do you connect learners at American universities to the global world in a way that promotes intercultural competence? This study reports on the planning, implementation and evaluation of an online intercultural exchange between French language students at a research university in the United States and students of English as a second language at a French university. While online intercultural exchanges provide rich, interactive, and authentic forms of communication for foreign language learners, how can they be integrated into the foreign language curriculum as a way to promote reflection and develop a deeper understanding of other cultures and one's own? The purpose of this qualitative study was to collect and analyze data to understand how an online intercultural exchange could be successfully designed and implemented, to collect and analyze data from online and classroom activities to determine how the integration of the project into the existing French language curriculum promoted reflective practice and intercultural competence, and to analyze student perceptions of the exchange. Two qualitative research strategies, action research and ethnography, were conducted using multiple methods of data collection: participant observations, analysis of the online blog, reflective essays, and videotaped oral presentations, and an open-ended survey from students about their perceptions of the exchange. This study aimed at evaluating the success of an online intercultural exchange and findings from the study suggested that students developed intercultural competences in the exchange and appreciated the authentic experience the exchange provided as well as the opportunity to explore and engage with another culture and their own. However findings from the survey also pointed out to problems in the exchange. Structural and organizational difficulties were the greatest hurdle for students. Findings from this study pointed to several recommendations about the critical role of the partner teachers in the exchange, the need for a variety of online communication tools, the importance of balancing topics of academic relevance and the development of personal relationships, and the significance of reflective tasks in the development of intercultural competence.