Understanding the "Other Side": Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange

Intercultural learning is often assumed to be an automatic benefit of e-mail exchanges between groups of learners in different countries, but little research exists on whether on-line intercultural collaboration does actually develop learners' understanding of the other culture's perspective and world view.This paper reviews what recent literature suggests intercultural learning to involve and then reports on a year-long e-mail exchange between Spanish and English second year university language learners.Using the results of qualitative research, the paper identifies key characteristics of e-mail exchanges which helped to develop learners' intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997).It also outlines elements of e-mail messages which may enable students to develop successful intercultural relationships with their partners.Understanding the "Other Side"...