Developing intercultural communicative competence in the ClerKing telecollaborative project

Abstract

Living in the 21st century means living in an era that is increasingly globalising where cross-cultural communication is essential; thus, students should be given opportunities to cultivate their Intercultural Communicative Competences (ICC). This paper reports on Phase 3 of ClerKing, a Franco-Jamaican telecollaborative project, which involved Applied Foreign Languages (AFL) students of English from Clermont Auvergne University (UCA), France, and students of French from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Jamaica. WhatsApp and videoconferencing were used to facilitate the interactions. Using the exploratory approach, we seek to identify different parameters of ICC, relying on Byram’s (1997) and Deardorff’s (2006) models. Preliminary findings show that students demonstrated and developed ICC such as openness and curiosity, culture-specific knowledge, an understanding of worldviews, sociolinguistic awareness, flexibility and adaptability, and negotiation of meaning. However, time difference, personal and academic schedules, connectivity issues, and misjudged/misinterpreted communication can lead to intercultural conflict.