The Affordances of Virtual Exchange for Developing Global Competence and Active Citizenship in Content-Based Language Learning

Abstract

In times characterised by constant technological growth and increased mobility of people and ideas within complex societies across the globe, initiatives such as virtual exchange can be seen as attempts to cross global boundaries and meet the demands of 21st century learners as universal citizens (Nicolaou & Sevilla-Pavón, 2016). Virtual exchange, or telecollaboration, has been mostly embraced by foreign language educators who are increasingly responding to the changing trajectories by adopting new pedagogies for teaching and learning. While the various benefits of virtual exchange have been acknowledged by researchers and practitioners alike, weak approaches to telecollaborative design and implementation have been identified (O’Dowd, 2016), mandating the re-evaluation of this pedagogical approach with a view to making it more sustainable and effective. The ‘gaps’ that have been identified centre primarily on the failure of virtual exchange to provide students with authentic experiences (Hanna, De Nooy & De Nooy, 2009), similar to the highly complex encounters in which they will engage in their future life and career. Criticisms of virtual exchange or telecollaboration lie in the view that this pedagogical approach provides opportunities for a monolithic exploration of culture, overlooking the fluid and versatile nature of this construct. Virtual exchange has also been criticised for engaging learners in surface-level discourse (O’Dowd, 2016), failing to foster substantial collaboration and critical, agentive behaviour (Little, 2016). This research aspires to address these gaps and drive the discussion to an emerging model of virtual exchange that will afford opportunities for meaningful interaction, enabling learners to understand the potential of global partnerships in response to society’s current demands. The study is an attempt to build the learners’ global profile through virtual exchange projects that adopt a critical, action-oriented design. The ultimate goal is to create a telecollaborative habitat that is rich in affordances for the development of global competences and active citizenship with a view to promoting a democratic culture in internationalised university content-based language education. A design-based research methodology was followed in this study which included three phases: the Exploration, the Implementation and the Reflection phase. The major outcome of this research is an evidence-based understanding of the affordances of virtual exchange for developing clusters of global competences that can be deployed to exercise critical agency in response to society’s challenges. The study concludes with the conceptualisation of the telecollaborative ecosystem comprising six interrelated elements, and a set of eight design principles in order to support the virtual exchange ecosystem.