【Teaching Practice Report】

Opening the Door: Using the International Virtual Exchange
Project to Enrich Discussion Classes
Jon Mahoney
Abstract
This paper reflects on using The International Virtual Exchange Project (IVE) as a means of broadening students’perspectives and developing their intercultural competencies by allowing them to interact with other students indifferent countries around the world. In total, 85 students took part in the study. I utilized a mixed methods
approach to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in the form of class notes and a Google Form, respectively.
In general, students gave positive impressions about using IVE, stating that it helped improve the content of their
discussions, their motivation to study English and their written English. This paper closes out by suggesting that
integrating the IVE Project into the Discussion syllabus boosted students’ participation and satisfaction of thecourse.
Keywords: Virtual exchange, intercultural competency, global, online

Introduction
In the age of technology and information, it would seem inevitable that telecollaboration would
enter the education sphere. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the inception of suchprograms has quickened the calibration of platforms into language programs (Jager et al, 2020). In
fact, the Japanese business federation Keidanren recently placed the skill of intercultural
understanding as being on par in importance with English competency (Hagley, 2021). Virtual
exchange (VE) is a domain of online foreign language education that has experienced substantial
growth and change in the past number of years (O’Dowd & O’Rourke, 2019). It is a contemporary,economical and pedagogical approach for boosting global proficiency and intercultural competencies
through transboundary and multicultural learning environments via virtual platforms (Bijnens et al.,2006; Villar-Onrubia & Rajpal, 2016).
The participating students in this study were all enrolled in the English Discussion Class (EDC)
module, a 14-week course taken by all first-years students who are required to discuss contemporary
topics using a variety of marked language functions. The primary goal of the course is for students toacquire the ability to discuss topics fluently and to have balanced and interactive discussions about
current topics in English with their peers (Hurling, 2012). By frequently uttering these functions,learners gradually develop a stronger network of associations between these features while also
gaining a deeper understanding of the contexts in which they occur (Ellis, 2002).
Each class consists of nine or ten students, with each student placed into classes with otherstudents of a similar English competence. The semester began with conventional face-to-face classes
with each class being 100-minutes in duration. Due to COVID-19 protocols, all students were required
to wear masks and had to remain in the same seat for the entire lesson. I made seating charts foreach lesson beforehand to ensure that students were sat next to different classmates in the next
lesson. I would use the ready-made seating chart to guide students about who to speak to when
speaking practice was commencing, which was useful and efficient. Instructors were advised to keep
110

OPENING THE DOOR: USING THE IVEPROJECT TO ENRICH DISCUSSION CLASSES

a distance from students whilst they conversed, which made monitoring all the students effectively
in groups somewhat challenging. After each practice or discussion, I would give verbal feedback andwritten feedback via the whiteboard and facilitate student-to-student feedback. After three weeks ofteaching face-to-face, the classes were moved online. To scaffold the language functions that thestudents would use in each forthcoming class, I would add a Google Slide to depict the usage of thelanguage function. I would also embed relevant YouTube videos related to the topic of each chapter
in the textbook to help the students think more deeply about the topics beforehand.

The International Virtual Exchange ProjectIn the previous academic year, I had used asynchronous discussion board forums in each of mydiscussion classes. The main aim of these forums was to allow students the chance to practice using
the language skills of the forthcoming discussion lesson, as well as letting them share their ideas
about the topic that they would discuss in the next lesson. The results of using these forums werepositive. Students reported finding new ideas, thinking more deeply about the topics, and organizing
their discussion ideas before the lessons began (Mahoney, 2020). This year, I wanted to expand onthese forums by entering my students into the International Virtual Exchange Project (IVE fromhere onwards).
The genesis of IVE came from a need of connecting students studying English as a foreign
language (EFL) in Japan with students studying English in other countries and allowing them to use
the English that they are studying in class to communicate (Roarty & Hagley, 2021). IVE first began
in 2004, initially with one class from Japan and Colombia, and has now expanded to include 11
countries with around 5,000 students participating in the exchange (Roarty & Hagley, 2021). IVE has
been funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Kaken grant and iscomplementary for participants (Hagley, 2020). IVE transpires on a Moodle platform where students
can exchange information in a variety of ways including text, pictures, audio and/or videos (Roarty& Hagley, 2021).
In the May-July 2021 IVE, 3885 students from a total of 18 different countries were selected andposted on the forum. The main participating countries were Japan with 2100 students (54%) and
Colombia with 1127 students (29%). The other most active countries included Indonesia with 211
students (5.4%), Mexico with 90 students (2.3%), India with 78 students (2%) and Turkey with 60
students (1.5%). A total of 5007 students signed up to participate in the project, but COVID-19 andother problems restricted many students from the different countries from participating fully.

ProcedureIn the first lesson of the semester, I introduced the students to the syllabus and the grading
system for the discussions class. The students were advised that 50% of their grade would be
evaluated on their general participation, which involves how much effort they make in each class, theamount of language functions that they use and their attitude towards their fellow classmates; 30%
would be from three speaking tests in which they are solely evaluated on their language forms usage
and 10% would depend on homework, which was a weekly quiz from weeks 2-13 about the reading
section of each topic in the textbook. IVE would run from weeks 4-12 in the semester, and I advised
students that this would be 10% of their final grade. During the 8-week duration of the project,
students were required to make a minimum of two posts per week. I reminded the students of this111

多言語教育実践ジャーナル

第2巻 （ JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL PEDAGOGY AND PR ACTICE, VOL. 2）

requirement when giving them feedback after each class via email and an announcement on the class
homepage on BlackBoard. I posted the link of the IVE website directly below the reminder toencourage the students. Further, I advised students that it was fine to talk about any topic and use
any English that they knew and that they should try to enjoy using the platform and use the language
functions that we would be using in class, such as opinions, examples, points of view, and follow-up
questions. My guidance was influenced by O’Dowd et al. (2020) who proposed that teachers need toprovide ‘pedagogical guidance’ when harmonizing VE into the classroom. Each student was placed
into a different group of around 25 other students participating in IVE. In this group, students wereencouraged to introduce themselves and share their culture with their group members. The Group
Forum was broken down into four main topics that would span the duration of the project. The topics
were as follows: Who we are (05/03-05/23); Student life in our cultures (05/24-06/05); The cultures
around us (06/06-06/19) and Gifts (06/20-07/03). Participants were also able to post in the Open
Forum, which was a place where all participants could post and interact with one another. The Open
Forum had 14 topics, including Art & Music; Your Future; Speaking; COVID-19; The News; Sports;
The Environment; Movies & TV; Travel; Food; Politics; Technology; Your Free Time and School Life.
Students were allowed to reply or post new threads on both the Group and Open Forum.
In week 7 of the semester, the topic of the lesson in the textbook was the globalization ofJapanese culture. Students were required to discuss which Japanese culture they thought was mostappropriate to share with the rest of the world and why. I gave the students a task that week to
specifically share their favourite Japanese culture on IVE. In this way, the lesson content directly
overlapped into their usage of the IVE. This strategy was founded from O’Dowd et al (2020), whosuggested that teachers integrate students’ own online interactions into class work. Since students
made a total of around 500 culture-related posts (including food, travel, music, favourites, gifts andmanga & anime), I believe that this was something that the students truly found interesting to chatabout.

Discussion and Findings
Student participation
A total of 1040 posts or replies were made by the 85 participating students, which is an averageof 12.2 entries per student. Twenty-eight students (33%) made 17-24 entries, whilst twenty-fivestudents (30%) made 8-16 entries. Five students (6%) made 25-32 entries and one student made 84
entries. Twenty-six students (30%) made 1-7 entries, which was less than the required amount for a
full participation score. These figures would seem to suggest that most students participatedspontaneously for their own recreation as opposed to participating only as it was a homework task.

Gender differences
Out of the fifty-six female students, thirty-six of them made a total of 84 posts (a post refers toinitiating a new topic on a forum). Twenty female students did not make any posts (36%). This
calculates an average of 1.5 posts per female student. The female students made a total of 700 replies(a reply refers to a student replying to another student’s post on a forum), which was an average of
12.5 replies per student. A total of 34,103 words were written by the female students, with an averageof 608 words written per student. Out of the twenty-nine male students, nineteen of them made a total
112

OPENING THE DOOR: USING THE IVEPROJECT TO ENRICH DISCUSSION CLASSES

of 56 posts, which was an average of 1.9 posts per male student. Ten male students did not make any
posts (38%). The male students made a total of 234 replies, which was an average of 8 replies per malestudent. A total of 12,219 words were written by the male students, with an average of 421 words
written per student. These figures would seem to suggest that the female students participated more
actively, by writing more words and posting more replies. However, the male students were more
likely to initiate new topics by making posts. This finding concurs with findings by Mahoney (2020)
that male students were more likely to initiate new topics on digital forum platforms.

TopicsThe most popular topics that students discussed on the forums included food (110 posts),favorites (90), travel (80), music (80), sport (63), culture (60), manga & anime (60), movies (56),
COVID-19 (56), and gifts (35). Students participated in around 50 different topics overall, ranging
from superstitions, politics, pets, love and being eco-friendly. This wide range would hint that thestudents appreciated the wide range of topics and the function of being able to create topics of theirchoice. One recurring theme was that the students would often compare the food of their local area
to that of other Japanese students. The vigorous participation of students in topics such as travel and
COVID-19 could be related to the current pandemic. Many students posted in forums such as“Where would you like to travel after the pandemic?” Students also posted often about how the
pandemic has affected their lives, whether it be studying or being unable to meet friends.

Advantages
In the final class of the semester, the students were poised with a discussion question: “What are
the advantages and disadvantages of using the IVE Project”. By the 83 students who were present in
the final class, 97 advantages were given. I will now cover some of these.

Usefulness to connect with foreign people and learn new perspectives
In total, 52 students indicated that the major advantage was connecting to foreign people:
It is useful to connect with people far away and share cultures from home.
It is great to communicate with foreign people who speak different languages for the first time.
It was a rare opportunity to exchange my opinion with people all over the world.
I could choose a topic I want to know about and discuss deeply.
Receiving replies from people around the world gave me new perspectives and ideas.
I could learn other viewpoints and broaden my horizons.
I could learn a different way of thinking.
Since students took lessons online from week 4 to week 12, they may have felt isolated fromtheir friends or society. Therefore, this digital platform provided them with a place to share theirideas and feelings whilst also practicing their English. Moreover, four students indicated that theyused pictures to illustrate their feelings and culture. The referral by one student that they used thewebsite as something akin to a diary would seem to suggest that the website served as a quasitherapeutic tool for some during the pandemic. This positive feedback has also been reported byJager et al (2021, p.22) who argue that VE offers “a more accessible, inclusive form of learning for all113

多言語教育実践ジャーナル

第2巻 （ JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL PEDAGOGY AND PR ACTICE, VOL. 2）

students.”
This positive feedback of authentic interaction supports findings by Hagley & Cotter (2016).
This result also correlates with the fact that 70% of students made the minimum of two posts per week
as I requested of them. In the Google Form survey (Figure 1), 71.4% of students agreed with thestatement that it was fun and interesting to chat to other students on IVE (see Figure 1).
Figure 1“It was interesting and fun to chat to other students on the IVE Project.”

Improving writing skills and learning new expressions   
Two other advantages that were prominently mentioned (7) were improving writing skills andlearning new expressions:
I could improve my writing skills, deepen my knowledge about topics and learn new expressions.
I could improve my reading and writing ability and get confidence and power in using English.
I could learn to express what I wanted to say in the discussion classes.
The main goal of this class was to furnish an environment in which students could converse in
English about subjects in that they are familiar with. These utterances suggest that not only did IVE
help students practice their ideas and learn expressions for their classes, but it also allowed them toimprove their writing skills by interacting in an authentic way. In the Google Form survey, 52.4% of
students agreed that IVE improved their English ability and motivation to study English. Although
29.8% indicated a neutral stance to this statement, 59.5% agreed that IVE improved their ideas and useof discussion skills in the classes.

COVID-19 news
A final advantage worth mentioning (6) was the license to discuss news, especially that which
was COVID-related:
It was an advantage to learn what is really happening in the world. We don’t really know when wewatch the news.
We could easily post and learn about the world. It was a good opportunity and a valuable source of
information during the COVID-19 disaster now.
Having the ability to get other sources of information was precious for the students. In theunparalleled times of COVID-19, different countries have been affected in different ways, and thenews is therefore reported through the lens of that nation’s government. Some 53.6% of students
114

OPENING THE DOOR: USING THE IVEPROJECT TO ENRICH DISCUSSION CLASSES

Figure 2“Seeing other people’s viewpoints changed my view of the world.”

agreed with the statement that seeing other people’s viewpoints changed their view of the world (seeFigure 2.)

Disadvantages
The 83 students in the final lesson expressed disadvantages of using IVE a total of 39 times.
There were two major disadvantages indicated by students. I will now discuss these.

Too many Japanese students  
The most prominent disadvantage mentioned by students (15) was that they were too many
Japanese students. Since the May-July 2021 project contained a total of 54% Japanese students, thiscomplaint was understandable:
There were too many Japanese students. It was strange discussing Japanese culture with them inEnglish. Talking to many Japanese students was not interesting.
There were limited countries. I would like to talk to European students.
Whilst this was mentioned as the biggest disadvantage in the final class, 74.5% of students
agreed that sharing their culture and learning about other cultures was interesting (see Figure 3).

Figure 3“Sharing Japanese culture and learning about other cultures on IVE was interesting.”

Therefore, although the students may have wanted more exposure to different nationalities
participating, it could be argued that they enjoyed learning some new aspects of Japanese culture115

多言語教育実践ジャーナル

第2巻 （ JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL PEDAGOGY AND PR ACTICE, VOL. 2）

from other Japanese students who lived in different areas of Japan. Since the topics of food andculture were very popular, this would seem likely to be the case. One student did specificallyhighlight this: It was fun to share food culture with different prefectures in Japan.

Website issues
The other main disadvantage expressed (14) was frustrations with the useability of the website.
Since IVE is still a relatively new project, this may be logical:
The web format was hard to use and interact.
It was hard to find replies to my posts.
It was hard to use. Twitter and Instagram are easier.
This concern has been highlighted by Hagley (2021), who voiced that some students may nothave adequate ICT skills to navigate the site smoothly. Despite this being mentioned as the second
biggest disadvantage, a total of 62% of students disagreed with the statement on the Google Formthat IVE was troublesome and not useful for learning English (see Figure 4). Only 15.5% agreed withsaid statement. Students were advised that they could use the website or the Moodle application on
their phones, but it is unclear if they heeded this advice.

Figure 4“Using the IVEProject was troublesome and not useful for learning English.”

Cultural differences and grammar worriesSome other notable disadvantages indicated by students included cultural differences andgrammar worries (3 and 4, respectively). Since IVE had students from over eighteen countries
participating, and this was sometimes the first time for some of my students to communicate withforeign students, this drawback would seem to have been inevitable:
There was a gap in value. We should read carefully what foreigners write and try to understandthem.
Chatting to foreigners was nuanced and hard to understand.
I was worried if I could accurately convey my feelings in English.
I could not check grammar, so I was nervous about making mistakes and posting.
The students’ concerns about making grammar mistakes concur with findings made by
Mahoney (2020) and Neilsen (2013). However, this drawback is mitigated by the fact that more
116

OPENING THE DOOR: USING THE IVEPROJECT TO ENRICH DISCUSSION CLASSES

students indicated that the platform improved their writing ability in the discussion in the final lessonof term.

Conclusion
In a time of great stress, uncertainty, and isolation, it has never been more important for teachers
to be flexible and to help their students achieve their study goals. The COVID-19 pandemic hasunderstandably caused a reaction in the education industry in exploring the delivery of online classes
and VE. With students taking classes at home and a constant flow of negative news from the media
about the ongoing pandemic, it may be difficult for teachers to produce inspiration and give students
motivation to try their best, especially in a language that they have been studying for over a decadealready. By entering my students into the program, which had some overlapping themes to the
textbook that they were using in the discussion class, I believe that this elevated motivation andpiqued students’ interest in the module. This quasi-recreational language usage would concur withEllis (2014, p.42), who argues that one of the most important principles any teacher should take into
consideration is to allow students to engage in “language play” and to form an “emotional identification
with the target language”. Overall, student participation in the project was active, and most students
did more than what was required of them to earn participation points in their score, suggesting thatthe platform went beyond studying and served as a place where students could make authentic
connections and express themselves during a time of great hardship.
Teachers who enter their students into VE programs must devise a means to provide students
for what Sauro & Chapelle (2017) refer to as ‘langua-technocultural competence’, which is where
linguistic and cultural abilities collide via VE platforms. Since no two VE platforms are the same andall interactions between users are unique, teachers must be ready to support students and scaffold
their interaction to make it meaningful. I would concur and suggest that teachers are obligated tooffer students pedagogical guidance, yet that they should also consider taking a step back to give
students the freedom to allow their language skills to grow organically in the VE setting, without too
much pressure of evaluation.
In the gloom of the pandemic, it has become necessary for teachers to find contemporary ways
to enliven their classes. Implementing VE could be a way in which they can attain the goals of
language retention, practice and cross-cultural interaction. From the findings of this study, it could beargued that IVE was a useful tool and is a project that will continue to grow organically in the age of
information.

117

多言語教育実践ジャーナル

第2巻 （ JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL PEDAGOGY AND PR ACTICE, VOL. 2）

References
Bijnens, H., Boussemaere, M., & Rajagopal, K. (Eds.). (2006). European Cooperation in Education
through virtual mobility: A best-practice manual. Europace.
Roarty, A., & Hagley, E. (2021). Analysis of Using Virtual Exchange to Develop Intercultural
Understanding in Students. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESLEJ), 25 (3).
Ellis, N. C. (2002). Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theoriesof implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in second language acquisition, 24(2),143-188.
Ellis, R. (2014). Principles of instructed second language learning. In Teaching English as a Second of
Foreign Language (pp. 31-45). Heinle Cengage Learning.
Hagley, E. (2021). Case Study 4, Japan: Incorporating Virtual Exchange into the English
Communication Classroom. In Language Learning with Technology (pp. 113-121). Springer,
Singapore.
Hagley, E., & Cotter, M. (2019). Virtual exchange supporting language and intercultural development:
students’ perceptions. In F. Meunier J. Van de Vyver, L. Bradley & S. Thouensy (Eds), CALL
and complexity- short papers from EUROCALL (pp. 163-168).
Hurling, S. (2012) Introduction to EDC. New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion,
1 (1), 1.2-1.10.
Jager, S., Peng, H., Alba Duran, J., & Oggel, G. (2021). Virtual Exchange as Innovative Practice acrossEurope: Awareness and Use in Higher Education: EVOLVE Project Monitoring Study 2020.
Mahoney, J. (2021) Using Asynchronous Discussion Boards to Complement Online Discussion
Classes. Journal of Multilingual Pedagogy and Practice 1 (1), 56-64.
Nielsen, B. (2013). Students’ Perceptions and Learning Outcomes of Online Writing Using Discussion
Boards. JALT CALL Journal, 9 (2), 131-147.
O’Dowd, R., & O’Rourke, B. (2019). New developments in virtual exchange for foreign language
education. Language Learning & Technology, 23 (3), 1-7. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/44690
O’Dowd, R., Sauro, S., & Spector-Cohen, E. (2020). The role of pedagogical mentoring in virtual
exchange. Tesol Quarterly, 54(1), 146-172.
Sauro, S., & Chapelle, C. A. (2017). Toward langua-technocultural competences. In C. A. Chapelle &S. Sauro (Eds.), The handbook of technology and second language teaching and learning (pp.
459–472). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118914069.ch30
Villar-Onrubia, D., & Rajpal, B. (2016). Online international learning: Internationalising thecurriculum through virtual mobility at Coventry University. Perspectives: Policy and Practice inHigher Education, 20 (2-3), 75–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603108.2015.1067652

118