Telecollaboration and the Remediation of Intercultural Communication

This paper illustrates the phases of a research project called Intercultural Telecollaboration that is based on the remediation of linear written discourse via the integration of digital tools. The aim of this study is to discuss the pedagogical use of hypermedia to promote Telecollaboration, which represents one of the greatest achievements of Web applications thus far focused on the improvement of foreign language learning and intercultural competence. Ten Italian high-school students of English and ten American intermediate-level students of Italian were paired up and interconnected online in order to use their L2s to discuss several conversational topics regarding their sociocultural backgrounds. Participants were encouraged to improve their mutual intelligibility through e-partnering, that consists in the voluntary exchange of selective corrective feedback. Moreover, a pre- and a post-survey were conducted to collect qualitative data about the students' experience in taking part in the project.