Development of Intercultural Communication Competence Through Networked Intercultural Collaboration

Intercultural communication competence is one of the most essential skills for English teachers in the 21st century. Teachers who master this competence are then expected to train students to build intercultural competence to interact and communicate effectively and appropriately in diverse communication contexts. Online cultural exchange collaboration between countries is one of the efforts to develop teachers’ intercultural communication competence that allows teachers to connect and collaborate with peers from different parts of the world to prepare and conduct learning together. This study explores the development of intercultural communication competence based on online cultural exchange collaboration for English teachers in Indonesia and teachers’ responses to online cultural exchange collaboration. The story of intercultural communication competence involved English teachers in North Sulawesi as research participants facilitated a month-long webinar on teacher professionalism capacity building from July 1 to July 30, 2022, through Zoom. The webinar involved experts from four Indonesian universities, English speakers from India, Algeria, Poland, Philippines, Japan, and Croatia, and English teachers from Japan, Belarus, and Myanmar. Topics discussed in the webinar included the concept of culture, teacher professional development, intercultural communication competence, and post-modernism in English language teaching, integrating culture in English language teaching in the form of developing teaching materials and lesson plans, using technology to support learning, collaborative cultural exchange in networks, characteristics of Filipinos, Japanese life values, Gunde dance from Sangihe, Minahasan culture, Polish stereotypes, and typical food from Algeria.

The research began by recruiting participants for a webinar-based online cross-country cultural exchange. One of the research teams visited schools in North Sulawesi and socialized this program. The webinars were conducted twice a week in the afternoon in collaboration with the Department of English Education, Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Negeri Manado, as the organizer of the activities. At the end of the webinar session, research participants entered their reflections, and there were some follow-up activities from the webinar session in the form of independent assignments to be done. Research participants were facilitated to collaborate in conducting joint learning with teachers from Belarus, Myanmar, and Japan in the state of being guest teachers for students in Japan, inviting teachers from Belarus as guest teachers, and holding cultural presentations on traditional musical instruments with teachers and students from Myanmar. During the activities, the research team observed and analyzed the reflection results. The participants were then interviewed regarding their perceptions of the network’s cultural collaboration-based teacher professional development training. Intercultural communication competence is closely related to the program being launched by the government through cultural literacy, which is one of the essential pillars of primary and secondary education. Cultural literacy is necessary to preserve the nation’s culture and realize the profile of students as Pancasila learners who are globally diverse, rooted in the nation’s culture, and have a global outlook as stated in the 2022 Curriculum prototype and able to contribute to the livelihood of many people as mandated by the 1945 Constitution.

Image 1. [Workshop on culture-based RP development]	Image 2. [Telecollaboration Indonesia & Myanmar]
Image 3. [English speakers from Poalndia, India, & Algeria]	Image 4. [Guest teacher for students in Japan]

In image 1, one of the speakers, as a lecturer and researcher, discusses the concept of culture, intercultural and how to integrate these concepts into English language learning in the classroom, including the development of teaching materials, selection of learning activities and methods as well as teaching techniques, and culture-based assessment. In image 2, the teachers participating in the research are learning together with teachers and students from Myanmar on traditional musical instruments. In image 3, foreign language speakers from Poland, Algeria, and India explain some aspects of their respective cultures. A discussion between participants and speakers followed the session. In image 4, one of the research participants acts as a guest teacher for students in Japan, explaining Indonesia’s geography and culture.