Intercultural Perspective in Blended Mobility

Abstract

Blended Mobility combines physical mobility and the blended learning approach. In a blended mobility setting the students can get international experience without spending a full semester abroad. Typically, the students will participate in a project (learning) for several months, communicate virtually, and are abroad for a shorter period (for example, two weeks). Blended mobility has many positive impacts on students and their careers. With blended mobility, we foster internationalization of education, promote students’ employability through non-formal learning not requiring curricula changes, promote international experience of undergraduate students and boost the provision of professional skills, support collaborative learning and critical thinking. By participating in the blended mobility, students also have to cope with the intercultural perspective. In the case of physical mobility for a full semester, they have to cope with different language, culture, way of life, food, daily communication for example. However, while students are physically present, they are able to cope with this on the basis of observing their new cultural environment, they can ask home students and other people for help, but when students communicate virtually, they have less possibilities to recognise the before mentioned differences. They can still ask others, but they cannot observe the cultural environment of others, or only with a very limited view. In addition, if they are physically present for just a short time – for example, one or two weeks, the intercultural perspective can be quite a challenge for them, not only because of the short visit in another culture(s) (two weeks physical mobility can be connected to two different locations and cultures), but especially because, at the same time, they also have to cope with the many different cultures of other students involved in the same project (learning). They are also faced with different cultures of their teammates during the virtual period, and this is a special challenge as well. Because of that, we have to prepare students on blended mobility even more carefuly than for the long-term physical mobility. In the paper, we will present our experiences with intercultural perspectives in blended mobility in the frame of the blended AIM project. We will present the state-of-the-art in the project, cultural preparation and students’ opinions, as well as teachers’ observations.