This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding how intercultural communication, mediated by cultural artifacts (i.e., Internet communication tools), creates compelling, problematic, and surprising conditions for additional language learning. Three case studies of computer-mediated intercultural engagement draw together correlations between discursive orientation, communicative modality, communicative activity, and emergent interpersonal dynamics. These factors contribute to varying qualities and quantities of participation in the intercultural partnerships. Case one, "Clashing Frames of Expectation--Differing Cultures-of-Use, " suggests that the cultures-of-use of Internet communication tools, their perceived existence and on-going construction as distinctive cultural artifacts, differs interculturally just as communicative genre, pragmatics, and institutional context would be expected to differ interculturally. Case two, "Intercultural Communication as Hyperpersonal Engagement, " illustrates pragmatic and linguistic development as an outcome of intercultural relationship building. The final case study, "The Wrong Tool for the Right Job?, " describes a recent generational shift in communication tool preference wherein an ostensibly ubiquitous tool,

This study presents findings on the efficacy of an online learning environment developed to foster EFL students ’ intercultural competence via reading articles on topics of their own culture and communicating their responses with speakers of another culture. The project offered opportunities for EFL students to use their own societal and cultural practices as the focus for EFL learning. In addition, with the help of an e-forum, the learning environment allowed the students to exchange their views with speakers of the target language. Two e-referencing tools were made available in the system while students were reading and writing. The findings showed that all EFL participants were able to communicate fluently in the target language without much help from corpora-based ereferencing tools provided in the system. The use of the online dictionary decreased drastically after the first two readings. The online concordancer, instead of being used for learning different kinds of cultural meaning on the levels of lexical, syntactic, and textual organization as originally intended, was used by the students to link to articles of similar topics for further explorations of culture and language learning opportunities. Despite some technical difficulties with the computers, the collaboration between the two groups of students was successful, as can be seen from the positive and complimentary comments from the participants. The students ’ e-forum entries demonstrated four types of intercultural competences: (A) interest in knowing other people’s way of life and introducing one’s own culture to others, (B) ability to change perspective, (C) knowledge about one’s own and others ’ culture for intercultural communication, and (D) knowledge about intercultural communication processes.

This article describes the evolution of communication technologies, accompanying transformations in everyday communicative activity, and pedagogical possibilities these tools support in second and foreign language (L2) settings. We begin with an overview of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and uses of the Internet to mediate intercultural communication for purposes of L2 learning. We then describe generational shifts in Internet technologies and their proliferation and uses, with the majority of our efforts focused on contemporary environments such as blogs, wikis, podcasting, device-agnostic forms of CMC, and advances in intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL). Throughout, we engage in a discussion of praxeological fusions of various media technologies and the implications of this nexus of practice for the transformation of what it means to teach, learn, and communicate in L2 contexts.

approved version of the following dissertation:

In an increasingly globally interdependent world, proficiency in a second language and the ability to function interculturally are seen as important assets, even necessities. In Australia, the importance of second language skills has been recognised at the policy level by the inclusion of languages other than English as a key learning area nationally (MCEETYA, 1989 & 1999) and as part of the core curriculum in Queensland where Indonesian is one of the priority languages in the state. In Indonesia, English is the most widely taught foreign language in schools and is compulsory for most secondary students. This paper presents an account of a developing project designed to enhance the language proficiency and cultural awareness of students of both Indonesian and English through inclusion in their language program of computer-mediated exchanges. Ten schools in Indonesia and fifteen schools in Queensland are being linked in this large-scale tandem e-learning project, after a preliminary year-long feasibility study. This project, named QUIPNet (Queensland Indonesia Proyek Internet), is supported by the National Department of Education, Indonesia and by funding

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the introduction of an educational innovation---in this case, a collaborative network-based learning environment that utilizes ICTs and face-to-face sessions ---into the teaching of foreign language and business communication in Finnish higher education. An additional purpose of this study was to explore a) the affordances of the ICTs employed, and b) two particular pedagogical aspects: 1) the manifestation of social presence and the building of a sense of community in a multimodal learning environment; and 2) the roles of the teacher and the learner in an educational setting in which two participating groups of university students located in geographically dispersed sites communicate through the use of e-mail, computer conferencing, and videoconferencing. These groups had local face-to-face sessions with their respective teachers, as well.