To provide the conditions necessary for the development of students' intercultural communicative competences.
Project-based telecollaboration gives students the opportunity to make direct contact with the foreign language and culture they are studying. I use also this activity to research how language students' contact with native speakers via computer-mediated communication strengthens and develops students' intercultural competences.
The lecturer must find a partner at another university and build up good communication and trust with the lecturer. The activity requires a lot of logistics and preparation. The lecturer must prepare assignments for the students, decide which language for which task and decide which communication and collaboration tools students will use.
The activity switches between the students having a session in the class with their lecturers, after which they have a session online with their foreign language partner. While the students are online, they alternately discuss in Danish and French while they perform tasks together. Next the circle begins again with activities in the class, where they discuss their experiences, ask questions and talk about the theoretical backgrounds.
The students must supplement associations for France/Denmark and the French/Danes respectively (carried out independently and anonymously). The lecturer then brings together all of the associations and publishes them on the blog, after which the students can comment on the associations. The lecturer uses the students' data in classroom teaching, and discusses similarities and differences in the responses from both sides. The students present their hypotheses, discuss them in class, and then continue the discussion online with their partner.
The students have developed their intercultural competences and communicated effectively. This is clearly reflected in the completion of their assignments.
