Virtual Exchange for Intercultural Language Learning and Teaching

This book illustrates new virtual intercultural practices for language learning from primary to tertiary education and highlights the transversality of these practices throughout the language curriculum. The current English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) perspective sets the framework as a possible vector of cultural exchanges in a variety of contexts, and from which the different authors coming from Europe and all over the world present their studies. The book deploys diverse educational exchanges within a wide range of technological tools and with varied approaches to the intercultural dimension in language learning. Through these virtual exchanges, different languages and educational cultures come together to create emerging communities of practice co-constructed for the limited time-space of the collaborative projects. This volume opens a dialogue with researchers from different backgrounds and theoretical and methodological perspectives as technology can no longer be apprehended without its purposeful human and semiotic meanings and, conversely, human and semiotic meanings can no longer be apprehended without Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Going beyond strict polarised views on the technology or humanistic approaches, this book presents a more nuanced, interrelated stance and will appeal to researchers, scholars, post graduate students, and teachers in applied linguistics, language learning and teaching, education, information studies, cultural studies, and intercultural communication.

Anthippi Potolia is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Paris 8 - Saint-Denis, France. Martine Derivry-Plard is a Professor in Applied linguistics at the University of Bordeaux, LACES, France.

1. Research perspectives on virtual intercultural exchange in language education. 2. Going beyond these virtual walls: A retrospective of learning culture through language in intercultural telecollaboration. 3. Conceptualisation of a language task design model for mental acceptance. 4. Self-regulation and intercultural competence: Task analysis in a self-directed telecollaboration. 5. Immersive virtual reality: Exploring possibilities for virtual exchange. 6. Virtual exchanges among primary-education pupils: Insights into a new arena. 7. Communication, metacommunication and intercultural effectiveness in virtual exchange: The Evaluate project. 8. Intercultural telecollaboration for teacher education across three continents: Insights from experience journals. Conclusion: Looking back, moving forward.