This paper presents a six-week telecollaborative project carried out between B2 (Common European Framework of Reference for languages -- CEFR) level learners of English from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Spain, and B1 (CEFR) level students of Spanish as a foreign language from the University of Bath (UK). The aim of the project…

It is impossible to imagine a modern person with higher education who would have never studied one or several foreign languages and would not be familiar with the culture of different countries. Especially in the modern world, in which knowledge of languages serves not only as a way of cognition, but also as a key to self-realization both in one's…

This study measured changes in cultural awareness levels between two groups of US students in their third semester of a Spanish class. One group (experimental group) collaborated via Skype with a group of English language learners from a Colombian university and the other group (control group) did not. The experimental group met seven times during…

This reflective practice will examine and report on students' experiences of three different bilingual (English-Spanish) task-based telecollaborative projects. The observations indicate that throughout these different projects the students were able to develop their intercultural awareness and their critical thinking skills via different online…

As a Latina teaching educator in a global city where the majority of public school children come from Spanish-speaking homes (ECS, 2013), I push the boundaries of what is "possible, plausible and desirable" (Pickering, 2006), guided by the moral imperative that I can and must make a difference in the lives of children, through the adults…

The TeCoLa project promotes telecollaboration to foster meaningful foreign language learning particularly in secondary schools throughout Europe. In 2018, a number of pilot experiences are being conducted. This paper focusses on one of these pilot experiences, where learners from a Dutch secondary school and a Spanish primary school…

Foreign language telecollaboration offers innovations to enhance language instruction. Previous research has cited its use to develop linguistic skills and intercultural competence (Belz, 2003; Blake, 2013; Chun, 2015; O'Dowd, 2000; Schenker, 2014). This article reports preliminary outcomes of a pedagogical project which leveraged…

In recent years, going to a foreign country has become all the more significant for Higher Education (HE) students, as concepts such as internationalisation and intercultural competencies have gained a more prominent role in HE. For students to fully benefit from this experience, it is paramount to prepare them for their stay in a foreign country…

In language learning today, students from different geographical locations are able to interact online in a more authentic environment, share their views with their partners, create profiles as well as build online communities enjoying common interests. With this in mind, this paper examines and reports on a study about how students from two…

This volume examines many of the complex issues regarding the language skills and professional competencies acquired by students studying Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) at universities in the United Kingdom and across Europe. It also outlines the innovative pedagogical strategies, methods, and resources employed by language academics to help…

Intercultural simulations, such as Barnga (Thiagarajan & Steinwachs, 1990), along with the use of critical incidents (Gibson, 2002; Gropper, 1996), have long been a mainstay of intercultural communication courses and have found their way into English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms (Apedaile &…

While it is generally accepted that literature fosters (inter)cultural learning, few qualitative studies have sought to understand in what ways interculturality is developed. This article investigates the development of Spanish L2 students' intercultural awareness through the reading of a short story entitled "Norma y Ester" by Argentine…

Learning Communities (LC) represent an alternative model of teaching and learning in higher education that can foster intercultural competence and knowledge. "Some of the distinctive features of LCs are that they are usually smaller than most units on campus, they help overcome the isolation of faculty members from one another and their…

One of the key concerns of educators is to come to know what works in language teaching and under which conditions (Intercultural) Communicative Competence can be furthered. This concern is even bigger among professionals experimenting or willing to experiment with new media. Following socio-constructivist theories of learning (Vygotsky, 1978) and…

The 5th International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture has been hosted by Mehmet Akif Ersoy University (Burdur, Turkey), in cooperation with Çankaya University (Ankara, Turkey) and Süleyman Demirel University (Isparta, Turkey). Our main aim has been to provide a forum for discussion, to facilitate integration in these fields, and to…