Abstract
Background. The growing importance of international cooperation among universities have increased the number of joint training projects. Common Bologna principles followed by Russian and Spanish tertiary institutions helped perform a pilot study focused on telecollaboration and plurilingual and pluricultural competence implementation. The project aimed at forming plurilingual and pluricultural competence and communicative competence among students studying either English or Spanish or both through the integration of digital technologies into the learning process.Methods. This 7-month study took place in Moscow (Russian Federation) and Valencia (Spain) from November 2019 to June 2020. Participants were university students aged 20–23 from Teaching Training Faculties from Lomonosov Moscow State University and CEU Cardenal Herrera University. The undergraduates who volunteered to participate in the focus group took part in five telecollaboration sessions (March-May 2020). The participants were divided into two mixed (50% Russian and 50% Spanish learners) subgroups and discussed suggested topics during online studentled bilingual sessions. After each online interaction, researchers collected their opinions through questionnaires and discussion with a lecturer.Outcomes. All participants announced that the study gave them a chance to improve their language abilities, update their vocabulary and enhance their intercultural experience. None of the partakers reported having experienced any difficulty doing the project and only regretted that interaction time was too short. Additionally, lecturers were able to test new curricula implementation and assessment procedures.Conclusions. The pilot study was feasible to deliver and there was a clear, satisfactory result with the focus groups participants and teaching staff.
Highlights
From university cooperation to telecollaboration There has been a fast progression in global partnerships amongst higher education institutions all through the most recent twenty years because of the Bologna agreement
The analysis presented by Çiftçi & Savaş [8] pointed out five major factors influencing this trend: (1) the students’ general perspectives on their telecollaborative encounters, (2) language learning through telecollaboration, (3) intercultural learning through telecollaboration, (4) the difficulties experienced inside the telecollaborative undertakings, and (5) the requirements for additional successful telecollaboration;
Once we reviewed the essential aspects of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) telecollaboration, we can focus on the detailed example of the exchange phases aimed at sustainable international partnership and transferable career skills development [14; 15] in the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Faculty of Business: 1) socialising; 2) project organisation, planning and comparative discussions; 3) collaborative project work, research and analysis, problem-solving; 4) research results’ presentation and conclusion, evaluation and reflection
Summary
From university cooperation to telecollaboration There has been a fast progression in global partnerships amongst higher education institutions all through the most recent twenty years because of the Bologna agreement. Among current participants from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), we find 48 nations and the European Commission actively promoting quality education, cooperation and research. It is a knowledge integration space, fundamentally offering high quality comparable and compatible university training, three-cycle qualifications and joint groundwork for the work market necessities. The project aimed at forming plurilingual and pluricultural competence and communicative competence among students studying either English or Spanish or both through the integration of digital technologies into the learning process
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