Rethinking the ICC Framework: Transformation and Telecollaboration

Abstract This task‐based study, designed with Helm and Guth's (2010) Telecollaboration 2.0 framework in mind, qualitatively investigated a telecollaborative exchange. Two second language (L2) Spanish participants and three L2 English participants carried out a six‐week e‐mail exchange that centered on specific holidays, giving researchers an opportunity to study participants' intercultural communicative competence (ICC) (Byram, 1997) and how participants critically analyzed and discussed cultural aspects of an L2 language (Klein & Solem, 2008). Participants' exchanges revealed the following: (1) each participant's thoughts on his/her partner's culture as was perceived through L2 instruction, (2) each partner's reaction to perceptions and insight to cultural reality, and (3) sharing of personal anecdotes. Patterns in exchanges were analyzed using NVivo 10 software with a data‐driven, hybrid analytical approach. Thematic categories were created from the data and used to code the e‐mail exchanges and subsequently correlated to Helm and Guth's (2010) framework. Results indicated that participants using a Web 1.0 resource experienced transformation through the telecollaboration. Researchers concluded that more nuanced categories were needed to assess ICC to understand the intricacies of online collaborative exchanges. Researchers believed that Web 1.0, in the absence of Web 2.0, remained a valuable venue for telecollaboration.