Helping aerospace engineering students develop their intercultural communicative competence

Abstract

This paper presents a six-week telecollaborative project carried out between B2 (Common European Framework of Reference for languages – CEFR) level learners of English from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Spain, and B1 (CEFR) level students of Spanish as a foreign language from the University of Bath (UK). The aim of the project was to help Spanish-speaking students develop their Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). Students carried out asynchronous discussions focusing on two cultural topics in groups of four through the social network MeWe and participated in synchronous Zoom sessions in pairs. To conclude the project, students completed a collaborative task with their overseas partners. Qualitative data was gathered through the analysis of the transcripts of the Zoom sessions, the students’ posts on MeWe, as well as a final project questionnaire. Results revealed that the students who engaged the most in the synchronous sessions and felt curiosity about their partners’ culture were also the same ones who contributed the most to the cultural discussions on MeWe. At the end of the course all participants felt they had learnt something about their partners’ culture.