Promoting cross-cultural understanding and language use in research-oriented Internet-mediated intercultural exchange

Abstract

This case study investigated the effectiveness of the United Beyond Our Diversity (UBOD) project for the development of language skills and intercultural communicative competence (including attitudes, knowledge, skills, and critical intercultural awareness) in Taiwanese seventh grade learners. The learners’ attitudes and evaluations of UBOD were also examined. The research-based intercultural exchange project of UBOD 12-15 was designed to develop learners’ critical cultural awareness and to facilitate authentic interactions by engaging students in making deep cross-cultural inquiries. The UBOD 12-15 project, created by the Global Teenager Project, connected participants from five different countries with the help of a Wiki platform and a Moodle, which was used as an intra-class interaction tool. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect and analyze the data. The findings suggested that the research-based UBOD had a significant impact on the development of the learners’ critical cultural awareness and foreign language use; in particular, this project encouraged intrinsically motivated cross-cultural learning and, further, led the learners to discard their cultural stereotypes and view others from a different perspective.

Keywords:

• cross-cultural understanding
• research-oriented intercultural exchange
• Internet-mediated language learning

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the UBOD facilitators for their help and support during the project. We would also thank our UBOD partner classes. Their active involvement on the project gave us a wonderful learning experience.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan [grant number MOST 103-2410-H-110 -017 -MY2] and “The Aim for the Top University Plan” of the National Sun Yat-sen University and Ministry of Education, Taiwan, R.O.C [grant number 03C030302].

Notes on contributors

Jen Jun Chen

Jen Jun Chen is currently a PhD student of the Graduate Institute of Education, National Sun Yat-sen University, and is also a member of the country coordination team of iEARN Taiwan as well as an English teacher at Kaohsiung Municipal Jhengsing Junior High School. She received an M.S. in Education from National Sun Yat-sen University in 2004.

Shu Ching Yang

Shu Ching Yang is a professor at Graduate Institute of Education, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. She received her PhD in Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University of Bloomington. Her current research focuses on the learning processes associated with various kinds of interactive technologies. She has additional articles published in Computers and Education, Language Learning & Technology, Journal of Educational Computing Research, Ethics & Behavior, etc.