Oral translanguaging in telecollaboration: Effects on EFL learner intercultural awareness, learning and communicative competence

This study reported twenty-one Taiwanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) college students who participated in a five-week Taiwan-New Zealand telecollaboration program, Kindling, in a multimodal online environment. To this end we investigated 1) the association between their oral translanguaging practices and development of intercultural communicative competences (ICC), and 2) aspects of intercultural learning that impacted their translanguaging experience. Data included recordings of group-based online communication and the EFL students’ individual preparation and reflection notes on their online Quality Talk (QT) discussions, to which we applied content analysis based on ICC and intercultural learning frameworks. The findings indicated that oral translanguaging facilitated students’ development of positive attitudes toward intercultural awareness and learning. Analysis of the cultural comparisons and perspective shifts recorded in their QT reflection notes revealed ways in which students experienced dynamic aspects of intercultural learning through oral translanguaging. These results encourage researchers and practitioners to provide opportunities for language learners’ ICC development and intercultural learning through (oral) translanguaging opportunities in digitally mediated socialization through telecollaboration.