The Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media: exploring images of others in telecollaboration

Abstract

Positioned against the background of the Council of Europe's interest in developing intercultural competence through education, the study presented in this paper investigates the impact on intercultural visual literacy of the Council of Europe's Images of Others – An Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media (AIEVM). In our study, the AIEVM was used within the context of an online intercultural exchange between pre-service language teachers. Findings indicate increased intercultural awareness as students at universities in Germany and Spain engaged with the visually ‘mediated other’ through working systematically with the AIEVM. Multiperspectivity and critical cultural awareness in particular were shown to be enhanced through discussing ‘images of others’ in culturally diverse tandem teams.

Keywords:

• intercultural communication
• intercultural competence
• telecollaboration
• visual literacy
• multiliteracies

Notes

1. Both the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters (AIE) and AIEVM can be found on the Council of Europe website in the standard version and a version for young learners. The website also provides accompanying Notes for Facilitators, which explain the relationship between the questions in the AIEVM and the underlying framework of intercultural competence, as well as access to an introductory online course for educators who would like to work with the AIE: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/autobiography/default_en.asp

2. For an overview, see e.g. Spitzberg and Changnon (2009).

3. The Council of Europe's ELP website is at: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/elp/

4. The AIE's accompanying document Context, Concepts and Theories discusses the theoretical framework in detail: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/autobiography/default_en.asp

5. Intercultural encounters through social media will be addressed in a separate Council of Europe Autobiography.

6. T.D. refers to Telecollaboration Discussion and S.R. refers to Survey Response. Both abbreviations are followed by a number indicating the T.D. or S.R. number in the data analysis.