Abstract
This paper presents the details of a virtual exchange project conducted with 14 university students from Brazil and 14 university students from the US during the US spring quarter of 2019. This virtual exchange was part of the Teletandem Brasil Project, which has been developed by São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil and aims at promoting cultural and language learning in tandem. Students watched videos about current topics in Brazil and in the US and discussed them with their international partners. After the mediation sessions, the participants analyzed the results of their conversations through the Global Competence Matrix, a set of guidelines created by the US global competence task force in 2011. The results point to the importance of using an educational tool to promote a deeper cultural understanding, which in this paper focused on the issue of feminism in Brazil and in the US.
Highlights
This article analyzes some of the applications of the Global Competence Matrix (Boix Mansilla & Jackson, 2011) in a language and cultural virtual exchange with 14 Brazilian students from UNESP at the Araraquara campus and 14 US students from the University of Washington at the Seattle campus
The exchange took place during four Skype interactions of 50 minutes each in the US spring quarter of 2019. It involved a discussion of videos in English and Portuguese focusing on feminism and the educational system in Brazil and in the US
Even though the contact afforded by virtual exchange interactions is seen by many as a path into developing intercultural competence, it is important to establish specific teaching strategies to connect students’ experiential and practical knowledge by adding theoretical support that can lead them to problematize the discussions for deeper understanding of meanings, ideas, perspectives, and possible actions
Summary
This article analyzes some of the applications of the Global Competence Matrix (Boix Mansilla & Jackson, 2011) in a language and cultural virtual exchange with 14 Brazilian students from UNESP at the Araraquara campus and 14 US students from the University of Washington at the Seattle campus. The exchange took place during four Skype interactions of 50 minutes each in the US spring quarter of 2019 It involved a discussion of videos in English and Portuguese focusing on feminism and the educational system in Brazil and in the US. The virtual exchange detailed in this practice report is part of the Teletandem Brasil Project This project aims at pairing university students to work collaboratively through videoconference tools fostering cultural and language learning. In the case of language learning, this collaborative work lies on three principles: reciprocity, autonomy, and equality In this way, partners must be reciprocal in assisting each other to learn, but at the same time autonomous and have equal opportunities for practice (Salomão, 2019)
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