This study explores a multimodal approach to teaching contemporary Chinese culture to foster university students' intercultural awareness and intercultural communication competence via a third space. Two universities in the UK took part in the study where the course contents moved from static notions of culture-as-fact in terms of national traditions to digital presentation of and live discussion about contemporary China. The pedagogy includes discussing Chinese celebrities' digital videos and films on digital platforms, and students' digital presentations in multimodal modes. Findings from students' comments in the module evaluations, students' reflective essays, and lecturers' observations prove the viability of this approach, and the data analyzed via themes address the function of the third space, the application of multimodality, and approaches to intercultural awareness and intercultural communication competence. The paper suggests that multimodality can be an effective approach to advancing theory and practice in future contemporary culture teaching.

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This study explores how students produce their own mini videos using the target language to share experiences and communicate with native speakers. Multimodality is used as a theoretical approach. Class observations and in-depth interviews were used for data collection, which was analysed by theme. The research results indicate that students deem it the agency of their own learning rather than completing the assignments given by the tutor; they gain more from the discussions among their peers and native speakers than from giving the presentations in class only; watching and making comments on their own videos is visually and mentally stimulating, which triggers more thoughts and expressions. Students appreciate the cooperation among themselves, while they also find it challenging to manage their publicity. This research provides empirical evidence on how to encourage students' initiative to improve language skills and enhance intercultural communication competence, which sheds light on reshaping language and intercultural communication education.