TY - JOUR
T1 - The Trouble with Cyberpragmatics
T2 - Embedding an Online Intercultural Learning Project into the Curriculum
AU - Orsini-Jones, Marina
AU - Lloyd, Elwyn
AU - Cribb, Michael
AU - Lee, Fiona
AU - Bescond, Gwenola
AU - Ennagadi, Amine
AU - Garcia, Brenda
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - This paper reports on MexCo (Mexico-Coventry), an ongoing online intercultural learning project underpinned by action research. Its aim is to embed internationalisation into the curriculum of the institutions involved in order to promote citizenship competences, online intercultural communicative competence in particular, among both students and staff.
The integration of telecollaboration into the curriculum has highlighted problematic aspects of the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), such as cyberpragmatics (Yus, 2011). Cyberpragmatics is intended here as the skill of understanding others’ intended meanings in computer-mediated communication.
It is suggested that cyberpragmatics in online intercultural learning exchanges is a ‘Threshold Concept’ (TC) (Meyer & Land, 2005, p. 375), i.e. a key concept that is troublesome to understand as it is challenging to the identity of the learner, but which could open new learning horizons to the students who do manage to grasp it. It is proposed that cyberpragmatics is an integral components of ICC and that staff in Higher Education should support students to develop their global citizenship competences, including effective communication online in settings where English is used as the shared mean of online communication
AB - This paper reports on MexCo (Mexico-Coventry), an ongoing online intercultural learning project underpinned by action research. Its aim is to embed internationalisation into the curriculum of the institutions involved in order to promote citizenship competences, online intercultural communicative competence in particular, among both students and staff.
The integration of telecollaboration into the curriculum has highlighted problematic aspects of the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), such as cyberpragmatics (Yus, 2011). Cyberpragmatics is intended here as the skill of understanding others’ intended meanings in computer-mediated communication.
It is suggested that cyberpragmatics in online intercultural learning exchanges is a ‘Threshold Concept’ (TC) (Meyer & Land, 2005, p. 375), i.e. a key concept that is troublesome to understand as it is challenging to the identity of the learner, but which could open new learning horizons to the students who do manage to grasp it. It is proposed that cyberpragmatics is an integral components of ICC and that staff in Higher Education should support students to develop their global citizenship competences, including effective communication online in settings where English is used as the shared mean of online communication
KW - MexCo
KW - Global Citizenship
KW - Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)
KW - Threshold Concept
KW - Action Research
KW - Cyberpragmatics
KW - Online Intercultural Learning
U2 - 10.4018/IJCALLT.2017010104
DO - 10.4018/IJCALLT.2017010104
M3 - Article
SN - 2155-7098
SN - 2155-7101
VL - 7
SP - 50
EP - 65
JO - International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT)
JF - International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT)
IS - 1
M1 - 4
ER -