Teaching, Learning, Negotiating: The World Wide Web as a Model for Successful Cross-Cultural Communication

Abstract

New technologies and computer-mediated communication (CMC) in general seem inherently suited to result in constructive cross-cultural communication. Yet researchers note that students and teachers, both of whom are instructional planners, lack the skills necessary to function in environments where they are “collaborative designers, rather than transmitters of knowledge” (Campbell, 2004b). As a result, the new possibilities for cross-cultural teaching and learning through dialogue and negotiation in the online environment compel us to reconceptualize the traditional role of the instructor and to ask, what does it mean to teach collaboratively, interactively, open-endedly? This chapter examines several central questions related to this situation as well as provides an overview of the dialogue-enabling properties of the Internet environment and its potential to support multiple learning styles.