In the context of Virtual Exchange (VE) it is often assumed that participants will be naturally prepared to interact online successfully with their international partners. However, there is ample evidence in the literature to suggest that VE participants are usually unaware of effective communicative strategies in synchronous and asynchronous online communicative contexts. Through action research, this article investigates how teachers can provide scaffolding for both these communicative modalities in online intercultural environments. It reports on a qualitative content analysis of conversational and self-reported data from a corpus of three VEs that were collected and triangulated in order to identify when, in what areas, and in what ways students could benefit from pedagogical mentoring. The article then presents key mentoring stages and strategies that were identified and provides insight into the type of scaffolding that VE teachers can provide their students to help them achieve successful (a)synchronous online intercultural interaction.

This article explores pre-service English teachers’ self-reflections as participants in online intercultural exchange (VE). The aim is twofold: to examine participants’ perceptions of intercultural experiences in response to VE; and, to understand whether and how teacher trainees gain pedagogical insights through self-reflection situated in a cross-cultural online project. The study draws upon two iterations of exploratory research in a VE-project carried out with two cohorts of student groups. The first cycle involved students in Indonesia and Sweden, and the second cycle, a three-way collaboration, involved students in Argentina, Poland and Sweden. This article focuses on the Swedish side and examines empirical data incorporating e-diaries and interviews. A qualitative transcript analysis generated three intersecting themes: language and power, politeness, and participation through digital tools. Two theoretical constructs provide the analytical lens: persona (Hinrichsen & Coombs, 2014) and liquid interculturality (Dervin & Dirba, 2006). The findings challenge fixed notions of identity and interculturality, showing how participants engage in negotiations and fluid constructions of persona in response to perceived expectations of their interlocutors. The findings also indicate affordances of VE as a lingua franca contact zone in developing pre-service English teachers’ self-awareness and pedagogical competences.

This article explores the potential for fostering critical intercultural and global awareness through Transnational Virtual Exchange (TVE) focused on sustainability. The study is based on a lingua franca exchange between university students in Argentina, Poland, and Sweden. A qualitative content analysis of student e-portfolios unveiled reflective dimensions construed here as safe/brave spaces, echoing Andreotti’s (2006) notion of soft versus critical global citizenship education. Using theories of critical interculturality and third space, the analysis shows potential for developing participants’ critical reflection through TVE. However, the findings also reveal how in-depth reflection is often a lonely endeavor, overshadowed by project tasks that might unintentionally steer learners toward safe topics and consensus. So far, critical reflection is an underexplored area in empirical Virtual Exchange (VE) research. Student voices in this study bring to the fore questions regarding what it means to approach global citizenship education critically through online collaboration. The findings have implications for future design of VE projects where the focus is on social change through action-oriented tasks, but where critical and dialogic reflection after the completion of a pedagogical task is the salient part.

No abstract