Making the classroom global with asynchronous inter-cultural communication video exchanges

There is an increase of inter-cultural communication globally. Yet, Japan is an island country with an English language education system founded on grammar-translation. With limited opportunities to exposure of inter-cultural communication, this puts Japanese students at a disadvantage when learning inter-cultural communication skills. Despite recent government measures to increase communicative language instruction in the L2 classroom in Japan, teachers in the classroom in Japan still need to take action to offer opportunities for their students to communicate in an inter-cultural global community. This presentation explains and examines an asynchronous inter-cultural communication video exchange (ICVE). Two instructors team-teaching one class in one Japanese university (one a native Japanese English teacher, one a native English teacher) created an asynchronous ICVE with two teachers in two different classrooms: one in France, and one in Finland. The aim of the ICVE was to create a platform from which students could deepen inter-cultural understanding while practicing their English language skills. Each of the three participating classrooms were to send and receive four videos over 4 months. To assess the students? learning in the Japanese classroom coursework (evaluations, questionnaires, and presentations) were used. From an interpretivist paradigm a case study approach was taken and qualitative data collected to evaluate the efficacy of the ICVE. This presentation discusses challenges that arose and how they were overcome. It also shares a critical look at the students? opinions to the ICVE and the extent to which the students? perceived their intercultural communication was deepened. The advantages and disadvantages of this ICVE will also be highlighted. This presentation will be of interest to others who are considering establishing their own inter-cultural communication video exchange in their classrooms.