부산대학교 도서관

Foreign Language (FL) classrooms should be places where, at a minimum, communication is taking place in the foreign language being taught and intercultural understanding is also being developed. However, in countries where the majority of students are from a single cultural background, it is often difficult to keep students on-task if they do not have to use the language they are studying. Virtual Exchange (VE) ensures students interact with their online peers in the FL, as it becomes the lingua-franca. However, student attitudes toward such VE in the FL classroom are still not fully understood. This paper researches students' attitudes toward one VE, the International Virtual Exchange Project (IVEProject). Each iteration of the IVEProject is for eight weeks. Students interact asynchronously on Moodle forums in text, audio, and video. More than 15,000 students from 15 countries have participated in at least one of the VE carried out since 2016. Online surveys are carried out at the end of each exchange. Results suggest students have an overall positive attitude toward incorporating VE into FL and intercultural classes. [For the complete proceedings, see ED600837.]