Designing Telecollaboration Projects for Developing Intercultural Communicative Competence

Year 2021, Volume: 15 Issue: 2, 348 - 362, 26.12.2021

Sedat AKAYOĞLU Bedrettin YAZAN Babürhan ÜZÜM

https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1047511

Abstract

As the ways of communication and interaction have diversified thanks to the constantly
developing and changing technological possibilities, educators try to do their best to
follow the recent implementations and activities to better prepare their students for real
world demands. Telecollaboration (aka virtual intercultural exchange) is one of such
implementations for language educators and students which is an affordable alternative
for study abroad. Through these studies, educators design some tasks and activities for
their students in which learners could interact with peers from other contexts
synchronously or asynchronously. As one of the outcomes of these projects, educators or
researchers plan to develop intercultural communicative competence (ICC) of the
learners. In the first part of this paper, the researchers discuss the necessity of
intercultural communicative competence in language education by elaborating on the
skills that an individual with ICC should have. In the second part, we present the
affordances and challenges of telecollaboration projects. In the final part, we unpack some
critical issues to be considered in the design of a telecollaboration project. We consider
this part as a set of guidelines for researchers planning to engage in telecollaboration as
part of their teacher education and research practices.

Keywords

telecollaboration, intercultural communicative competence, language teaching, teacher education

Kültürlerarası İletişim Yeterliliğini Geliştirmek İçin Uzaktan İşbirliği Projeleri Tasarımı

Abstract

As the ways of communication and interaction have diversified thanks to the constantly
developing and changing technological possibilities, educators try to do their best to
follow the recent implementations and activities to better prepare their students for real
world demands. Telecollaboration (aka virtual intercultural exchange) is one of such
implementations for language educators and students which is an affordable alternative
for study abroad. Through these studies, educators design some tasks and activities for
their students in which learners could interact with peers from other contexts
synchronously or asynchronously. As one of the outcomes of these projects, educators or
researchers plan to develop intercultural communicative competence (ICC) of the
learners. In the first part of this paper, the researchers discuss the necessity of
intercultural communicative competence in language education by elaborating on the
skills that an individual with ICC should have. In the second part, we present the
affordances and challenges of telecollaboration projects. In the final part, we unpack some
critical issues to be considered in the design of a telecollaboration project. We consider
this part as a set of guidelines for researchers planning to engage in telecollaboration as
part of their teacher education and research practices.

Keywords

uzaktan işbirliği, kültürlerarası iletişim yeterliliği, dil öğretimi, öğretmen eğitimi

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