The majority of studies in ICC have utilized texts as reading materials for the promotion of discussions. Empirical studies have shown that the use of texts facilitates interactions among participants. Through these interactions and discussions, learners may develop ICC. The use of texts for the fostering of interactions and discussions predominates in studies that incorporate telecollaboration. The use of texts varies from readings in
textbooks to selected readings from newspapers, magazines, and other sources such as brochures.
Foundational studies such as those by Sercu (2002) and Belz (2003) incorporated the reading of texts for the development of ICC. The texts were used in the promotion of the factors identified as beneficial (e.g., knowledge, attitudes/affect, reflection, and critical awareness) for ICC development. Sercu (2000) investigated readings that appear in textbooks analyzed for their potential to foster ICC in Flemish students learning German. In her
to elicit skills of inquiry and the development of positive attitudes towards the foreign culture. However, the use of texts in this research did not offer the opportunity to learn about the way cultural understanding is constructed by interactions among learners given that the research focused merely on the identification of cultural references in the textbooks that offer potential for ICC development. The texts used in Sercu’s (2000) study were readings selected from textbooks. A complete description of the texts analyzed is not provided, but among the genres of texts mentioned were folk tales and informative texts describing aspects of German cultural practices.
Part of the limitations of doing research that focuses on methodological approaches, such as the case of the work of Sercu (2000), is that the theoretical frameworks used for analysis consider the potential of texts for the development of ICC, but the frameworks that have been used do not take into consideration the type of interactions that take place in communication exchanges. Nevertheless, Sercu’s (2000) work has been a guiding seminal study that assesses the potential of texts in the fostering of ICC and how foreign language pedagogies can benefit from tasks that aim at the elicitation of cultural awareness.
The use of text as a basis for tasks that foster ICC is also present in Belz’s work (2002, 2003, 2005). In Belz’s (2003) article, for example, the use of purposely-selected texts (e.g., texts that serve as reading materials) that contain cultural information showed that such texts can be beneficial for the promotion of discussions in cross-cultural encounters. The use of texts as the basis of tasks that are designed to prompt discussions/interactions has been widely explored in empirical studies. One influential approach to teaching ICC was
developed in the Cultura Project, which was developed by Furstenberg, Levet, English, and Maillet (2001).
The Cultura Project fosters ICC in the language classroom through the use of readings and the use of students’ L1s as cognitive tools for the transmission of cultural knowledge. The approach utilizes cultural readings delivered electronically via the WWW in a cross-cultural exchange (i.e., involving two culturally distinct groups) for the promotion of inquiry as the facilitator for cross-cultural communications. The Cultura Project has been influential in ICC teaching because it demonstrates how purposefully selected cultural readings can facilitate cross-cultural interactions, and how participants can develop skills of inquiry facilitated by the use of texts (i.e., texts from different sources such as magazines, newspapers, brochures used as reading materials).
The approach proposed in the Cultura Project has been used in different studies, even in more recent research such as the articles by Nguyen and Kellog (2010), and Kim (2011). In Nguyen and Kellog’s (2010) study, similar to the approach proposed by the Cultura
Project, texts are used as the common ground for cross-cultural discussions. The participants
in their study express their views on the readings and share their thoughts in a discussion board. This basic set up is typical in telecollaboration. However, even though this approach has yielded significant advantages in the facilitation of communication and dialogues in cross-cultural encounters, the use of texts alone does not take advantage of the affordances of computers and online materials. In other words, using text (i.e., texts as reading materials) as a basis for interactions facilitated by computers does not fully investigate the potential of the use of computers in the fostering of ICC given the capabilities for the delivery of multimedia materials (e.g., imagery, video, audio, hypertext) afforded by this medium (Levy, 2007; Liaw, 2006).
Telecollaboration projects have utilized computers as the medium of communication. Considering the language learning potential that the use of computers may offer (Chapelle, 2001), it is wise to explore other capabilities made available with the use of computers for the fostering of ICC. In commercial textbooks for the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language in the USA, for example, video programs have been integrated in the curriculum. The video programs are commonly offered on DVDs that instructors can play for in-class viewing. Nowadays there is increased popularity of electronic versions of the textbooks and workbooks offered for online individual viewing such as e-books. However, the new
affordances of technology such as individual viewing of video materials and the effects that such tasks offer for the development of ICC need to be further investigated. Such type of investigation should be methodical in that it would have to consider not only the medium of delivery as a factor that affects ICC development, but it should also examine the medium as one of the factors involved in the process of ICC development. This type of investigation, which is proposed in the present study, would bring valuable insights into the implications of online materials in ICC development (Belz & Thorne, 2006; Basharina, 2007; Dooly, 2011). This claim can be further explained in terms of the basic approach followed in
telecollaboration with the use of texts. Some studies have focused on the analysis of the contradictions (Basharina, 2007; Reeder, Macfadyen, Roche & Chase, 2004; Sercu, 2000; Thorne, 2003) that arise from interactions, but little attention has been given to the actual content of the texts used in the projects and how participants process references from texts into their development of ICC.
Studies that have considered the role of the contents of the texts in ICC development, such as Haneda (2007) and Nguyen and Kellog (2010), have found that contents of readings
do have an effect on the way participants construct cultural knowledge and how this affects learners’ development of ICC. In Hadena’s study, for instance, the learners were able to increase their understanding of the practices and expectations of writing by considering the text as the tool they used to communicate with the community at large. Writing practices were central to the study, and identifying linguistic features in their texts allowed the language learners to develop linguistic resources to more effectively communicate with the audience. The development of linguistic resources was connected to the awareness of the gains learners made in regard to writing as a communicative tool. Nguyen and Kellog (2010) utilized the content of the texts to trace changes in the conceptions and attitudes participants had to the concept of stereotypes. By analyzing the use of information from the content of the texts Nguyen and Kellog were able to establish connections between the gains in ICC
development that learners had and how these related to the text and interactions with other participants. The types of analysis conducted by Hanera (2005) and Nguyen and Kellog exemplify the benefits that closer considerations to the content of the texts in the study of ICC development can have.