Critical Approaches to Online Intercultural Language Education

This chapter explores critical approaches to online intercultural language education, also referred to as telecollaboration or online intercultural exchange. The origins of online intercultural language education lie in a critical view of the traditional language classroom. As the practice has evolved, several researchers have adopted a critical approach, questioning the many assumptions that have become ingrained in foreign and online intercultural language education. Major contributors have challenged notions such as intercultural learning being a natural outcome of online contact or the concept of a static, monolithic, national standard language as the target of language learners, whose ideal interlocutors are “native” speakers of this language and experts of its equally static culture. They have also unpacked conceptualizations of sociocultural competence and communicative language teaching as well as the notion that technology is merely a tool through which learners communicate. Recent work has looked, for example, at lingua franca exchanges, which challenge the power dynamics of traditional exchanges and offer a wider range of identities than the nonstandard, deficient communicator that the native speaker target implies. The ecologies of online intercultural language education and the mediating and shaping role of technology and its relations with society have also garnered interest recently. Problems and difficulties in the adoption of critical approaches include the reluctance of teachers to take a political stance and the need to constantly question one’s practice. The chapter concludes with reflections on preferred futures for online intercultural language education.