Students’ cross-cultural communication as a key component in foreign language blended learning withing Europe

Abstract

Students’ cross-cultural communication is considered in the article as the defining feature of modern civilization and intercultural understanding is considered to be one of the most important and complex challenges of nowadays. Cross-cultural communication of students in Europe has social, cultural, cognitive and linguistic aspects. The author pays special attention to blended foreign language teaching as a manifestation of the internationalization of Ukrainian universities. The correlation of blended foreign language learning with the global cultural context defines the students’ cross-cultural communication process as a key component of the communication act whereby students acquire specific intercultural competences and improve their professional and linguistic abilities. The article focuses on the opportunity that students’ cross-cultural communication provides through the use of foreign language blended learning which is able to commit students to professional cross-cultural networking and global education target within Europe. The challenge consists in the active involvement of the students in engaging foreign language blended learning experiences in order to rise their sense of ownership and responsibility of their language learning experience and to develop the students’ commitment to build professional culture experience. It stresses that the content of cross-cultural communication is based on the integration of the most important components: a language that reflects the culture of the folk; a culture that conveys the features of socio-historical conditions and a personality, which is formed during the educational and social activity. In our case we mean students. The author highlights the promising ideas of students’ cross-cultural communication in foreign language blended learning and analyzes the benefits of foreign language blended learning within Europe.The need to relate foreign language blended learning interaction to the global cultural context redefines the process of students’ crosscultural communication as a key component of the communicative act that make students acquire the specific crosscultural competence and improve their professional abilities. The great necessity for distance education or blended learning in Eastern Ukraine, for instance, emerged in 2014. After the evacuation of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University in 2014 from Luhansk to Starobilsk (the Faculty of Foreign Languages was displaced to Poltava) was organized blended learning or distance education and LMS Moodle Platform was chosen in such conditions. A feature of the implementation of such a system was the large number of courses with very limited technical resources. More than that, the international service provided by the Center for International and Educative Work operates at the university to promote international cooperation and students’ cross-cultural communication. The Center helps the research and teaching staff and the university administration to improve skills by coordinating international educational contacts with relevant institutions abroad. In addition, the Center provides the implementation of scientific and methodological support and execution of appropriate documentation, as well as working with foreign citizens – students of LNU in accordance with normative legal acts of Ukraine governing the provision of educational services to foreigners and providing the conditions for their stay in Ukraine. In conclusion, foreign language blended learning is proposed to emphasize the cultural dimension of foreign language teaching and to train foreign language students to be equipped with e-tools to mediate between cultures. The virtual platform, as well as the in class meetings, address the affective dimension through various simulations of different cultural spaces.