Outputs

Enhancing students’ intercultural communicative competence in collaborative online environments 

Digitally-mediated courses are growing in engineering curricula around the world, especially through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), connecting classes in different countries, and recently, under Erasmus+ in Europe, through Blended Intensive Programs (BIP). Both COILs and BIPs become ideal venues to promote intercultural exchange and develop students’ greater knowledge of and sensitivity towards each others’ cultures. For this reason, it is necessary to address intercultural communicative competence in an explicit and systematic way, both in teaching and course design. 

Addressed to lecturers and course designers interested in internationalisation, this workshop took a hands-on approach to Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) to raise participants’ awareness of its importance in the design of collaborative international exchanges. Participants were invited to examine different types of international courses to explore whether and how ICC can be systematically integrated, as well as to identify common difficulties found in culturally diverse classes. They explored different scenarios of authentic international students’ interactions that can lead to the systematic development of ICC. A final reflective task engaged participants in examining those opportunities that emerge in COILs and BIPs for the development of students’ ICC as well as the support that can be provided to lecturers involved in international online courses.