Raising critical cultural awareness through telecollaboration: insights for pre-service teacher education

Increase in diversified teaching contexts has led researchers to investigate the potentials of telecollaboration in multicultural learning environments. While there are abundant telecollaboration studies, improving intercultural awareness through a theoretical model is usually under-investigated. Based on Byram’s (1997 Byram, M. (1997). “Cultural awareness” as vocabulary learning. The Language Learning Journal, 16(1), 51–57. doi:10.1080/09571739785200291Taylor & Francis Online , Google Scholar) co-orientational and Bennett’s (1993 Bennett, M. J. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. In R. Michael Paige (Ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (pp. 21–71). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. Google Scholar) developmental intercultural competence models, this study intends to raise critical intercultural competence among 50 pre-service English teachers through telecollaboration with five faculty members across European countries. Relying on data generated through (a)synchronous delivery modes in an eight-week intervention, participants’ intercultural development was measured by quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings suggest that telecollaboration had a significant impact on learners’ critical intercultural development. In particular, interaction with different cultural perspectives dismantled prejudices and stereotypes as evidenced by their 1) cognisance of diversity, 2) pragmatic cultural stance, 3) latent intercultural conflict and 4) oppressed gender inequality. This study reveals that telecollaboration is a viable venue for increasing pre-service teachers’ critical cultural awareness and reducing biases in multicultural learning contexts.