Crossing borders without doing so using English as Lingua-Franca Virtual Exchange.


Hagley E., Tuncer H.

ENRICH2021- 1st International Conference on ELF-Aware Practices for Inclusive Multilingual Classrooms, Athens, Greece, 3 - 05 December 2021

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Unpublished
  • City: Athens
  • Country: Greece
  • Çukurova University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The International Virtual Exchange Project (IVEProject) gives students an easy way to communicate internationally as the platform has students from over 20 countries (that number is increasing) interacting via text, video and audio in English as a Lingua-Franca (ELF). This borderless platform is changing students’ and teachers’ philosophy of communicative language learning. The relatively authentic means of communication ensures foreign language classes have a very “real” feel about them promoting intercultural communication that doesn’t involve native speakers. Research is beginning to show ELF Virtual Exchange (VE) is better received by students of EFL and of more value to them. The IVEProject is free-of-charge and sponsored by a Japanese government grant. It runs for 8 weeks twice a year (though the number of times will increase.) Supported by both qualitative and quantitative data, this presentation will showcase both research and case studies on a number of different groups but focus on one particular group - Turkish pre-service EFL teachers. The research shows their intercultural competence development and VE experiences were positive. The outcome of the study demonstrates that students’ intercultural sensitivity increased through participation in the IVEProject and they enjoyed this cross-border ELF communication. Other outcomes of the project will also be discussed. The presentation will finish with a brief outline of how teachers can join this or similar projects and ideas on how to incorporate ELF style VE into the foreign language curriculum.