A Design for Intercultural Exchange an Analysis of Engineering Students Interaction with English Majors in a Poetry Blog

Students use a blog as then platform for interaction in a web based poetry

Exchange between an american and a Swedish university (exchanges which has been part of the course assignment)

Students were encouraged to shape their own new perspectives

The Lingua Franca is English which implies that non-native speakers need to express their ideas to the native speakers.

Native Speakers will have encounter with non-native speakers, that is the reason that enviroments enhance web based group activities.

Such as blogs, are considered benefical for extending students communicative repertoire.

Background: Digital tools are used play a critical role in intercultural communication

"Telecollaboration" studies

For the development within language learning, these media have generated openings to enhance multilingual and multicultural aspects of language learning in global exchanges.

Asynchronous social software platform such as a blog for interaction within an educational environment implies using a meeting space that caters for chronological

Structured exchange of ideas over vast physical distances.

This study analyses the interaction taking place in an intercultural student exchange blog.

The reason for focusing on the most recent exchange was catching the most current debates from the student exchanges.

Blogs are increasingly being used for educational purposes. This impllies that students are asked to interact in environments where they are not always particularly experienced or used to interacting.

Using social software such as a blog in targeted way in language education allows for student engagement in a joint project.

The issue of translations and negotiating meaning was identified in the interaction.

The interpretation of the poems for half of the students in the exchange was totally reliant on the variants of translations offered and not the poet's.