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Global education through online international collaboration #132

Students today are facing an increasingly interconnected global society that demands cross-cultural understanding and communication skills. Thus, fostering global education through online international collaboration and exchange in language classrooms has proven to be beneficial to students (El-Hindi, 1998; Schreiber and Jansz, 2020).

This study examines a school exchange program conducted through live video conferencing between two schools in Japan and Nepal. Through the exchange program, students learned about school life, culture, and society in each other's countries. The impacts of the program on broadening student's understanding of culture and society in each other's countries and their English language ability and motivation were evaluated through the questionnaire survey and observations. Participating students took the pre- and post- session-questionnaires.

Quantitative results show that students' interest and knowledge about the culture and society of each others' countries and motivation to learn English increased significantly after the exchange program. This technique was found to be effective not only to learn the language but also to enhance cross-cultural awareness that fosters global education.

References: El-Hindi, Amelia E. (1998). Beyond Classroom Boundaries: Constructivist Teaching with the Internet (Exploring Literacy on the Internet), Reading Teacher, 51(8), pp. 694-700. Schreiber, Brooke R; Jansz, Mihiri (2020). Reducing distance through online international collaboration, ELT Journal, 74(1), pp. 63–72, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccz045