Addressing Power Imbalance in Telecollaboration to Promote Attitudes of Intercultural Competence

• Autor(a) principal: Verzella, Massimo
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Moraes Caruzzo, Vivian Nádia Ribeiro de, Costa, Tamiris Destro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Signum: Estudos da Linguagem
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/signum/article/view/44702

Internationalization-at-home (IaH) can benefit all types of students, and its value has become more evident in the long aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper reports on a virtual exchange project: Students of English as a foreign language in Brazil and English composition in the US engaged in an international telecollaboration project in which both groups took on the role of authors and reviewers. Research on telecollaboration is rapidly growing to help instructors understand how to help students develop intercultural competence and an ability to collaborate with people from different backgrounds. To determine whether the participating students achieved these learning goals, we asked them to complete a questionnaire at the end of the project. Results show that the telecollaboration stimulated students’ interest in other cultures, a crucial first step towards the acquisition of intercultural competence. The students collaborated effectively because the two groups trusted each other’s linguistic competence. Telecollaboration proved to be one of the most pedagogically sound initiatives within the sphere of IaH. More instructors should prepare students to communicate and collaborate effectively in cross-cultural teams through this type of experiential learning.