Introduction

This volume brings together a series of case studies which illustrate how VE projects have been developed and implemented in a range of different settings. Most of the case studies presented were developed in the context of the Erasmus+VE project (2018-2020), a pilot project funded by the European Commission. The aims of the project are to offer young people in Europe and in Southern Mediterranean countries opportunities to engage in a meaningful cross-cultural experience, as part of their formal or non-formal education.

Virtual exchange: Romania and Hungary 100 years later

The aim of this Virtual Exchange (VE) project was to bring together students from the Andrássy Gyula German speaking university (AUB) in Budapest, Hungary, and Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu (LBUS), Romania, in order for them to get to know their neighbors and reflect on the way the end of WWI is remembered 100 years later. In this case study, we discuss the way we conceived the three iterations of the VE (2018-2020), the challenges we faced on different levels, as well as the value of this teaching method for the academic field of history.

Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange for internationalisation in besieged areas: a case study of the Islamic University of Gaza

The Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) has participated in the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange (E+VE) programme since the beginning of 2019. The international relations office, the body responsible for managing the programme at IUG, noticed that there was a positive change in participants’ knowledge and perceptions about VE and its role in enhancing their academic competencies and soft skills during the spring and autumn 2019 terms. As a result, IUG conducted an in-depth study to explore the role of a VE programme at the university in enhancing the students’ cultural understanding, cross-cultural communication, and collaboration while engaging in project based learning.

Task-enhanced virtual exchange between University of Sfax, Tunisia, and Hacettepe University, Turkey

This chapter presents a case study of an online task-enhanced Virtual Exchange (VE) project that involved 19 English students at Hacettepe University, Turkey, and 19 students of English at Sfax University, Tunisia. The objective behind the VE was to provide students with opportunities for intercultural and interactional development through the performance of collaborative intercultural tasks. At the end of the project, students’ performances were assessed and graded, and the project was evaluated by Tunisian students, by means of narratives. The case study concludes with recommendations to be taken into consideration for future VE projects.

The transnational job exchange project: a French-German TEP

The technical institutions Institut Mines Télécom in Albi, France (IMT) and Trier University for Applied Sciences at the Environmental Campus of Birkenfeld, Germany (UCB) have been running Virtual Exchange (VE) projects since 2013. These projects allow the French and German students to use the vocabulary learned in class in a real context and to develop their interaction competencies. This case study reports on the latest project about job searches, in which teams with a German and a French partner were formed and different activities were created to gain insights into the job application procedure.

Foreword

This collection of case studies could not come at a more auspicious time, and not only because of the global pandemic that is affecting all of our lives. Virtual exchange is often presented as an innovative approach to teaching and learning across cultures, but inherent in the word ‘innovative’ is the concept of something being ‘new’. As a practice, as well as a focus of research, different forms of virtual exchange have been around for over three decades. What is perhaps ‘new’ is the exponential growth of the field in the past five years, and the coming together of a community of practitioners, researchers, and funders who now place their different models under the umbrella term of ‘virtual exchange’.

E+VE-SFI: developing spoken interaction in a foreign language

E+VE-SFI (Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange – Spain, France, Ireland) is a higher-education VE between students from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), and the University of Limerick (UL). Its primary aim is to develop the speaking skills of undergraduates enrolled in foreign language programmes. Running over a six-week period, students interact in pairs via videoconferencing to carry out a series of tasks using either the foreign language (UAM-UL) or English as a lingua franca (UAM-UCA). Finally, students participate in an online session mediated by E+VE facilitators whose purpose is to increase their intercultural awareness in preparation for their study abroad experience.

Intercultural competence for youth workers

Intercultural Competence for Youth workers (ICY) was a project co-funded by the European Union Erasmus+ programme that ran for 14 months, from spring 2019 to spring 2020, and involved four organisations from Finland, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands.Engaging youth workers and young people with fewer opportunities, the project helped youth workers improve their intercultural ability to create places – particularly in the context of sports activities – where young people feel safe, accepted, and not discriminated against. In the context of the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange (E+VE) initiative, the partners developed a ‘trial run’ which included an online facilitated dialogue session to test the pedagogy and process of VE, as well as get feedback from the youth involved.

Recognising participation in virtual exchange: open badges and the CLAVIER contribution

The CLAVIER (Connected Learning And Virtual Intercultural Exchange Research) network grew rhizomatically as a result of open practice (Blyth, 2019), which is central to the CLAVIER approach. Informed by the field of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), the network has provided a safe space to experiment with the development and implementation of open badges to support sustained participation in Virtual Exchanges (VEs). This case study describes the rationale for CLAVIER’s open badge framework and its links with the Erasmus+ VE (E+VE) badges.

Integrating Soliya’s Connect programmes into a language course and into a liberal arts and sciences degree

This chapter presents how I integrated Virtual Exchange (VE) programmes delivered by Soliya in two courses at an international undergraduate liberal arts and sciences college. In both cases the VE programme was fully integrated in the courses as a graded element. The students of beginner Italian participated in the four-week long Connect Express. While liking the experience, they found that the VE was still too disconnected from their aim of learning a language. The students of Intercultural Communication (IC) participated in the eight-week long Connect Global. For them, the success of the experience was linked to the group composition and the English proficiency level of participants.