Learning proverbs through telecollaboration with Japanese native speakers: facilitating L2 learners’ intercultural communicative competence

Telecollaboration has been considered to have great potential for the development of L2 learners’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC), so an examination of what benefits L2 learners receive through telecollaboration is necessary. Also, L2 learners’ use of culturally specific expressions, such as proverbs, has not been adequately investigated. The present study investigated the effects of telecollaboration on L2 learners’ perceptions of their ICC knowledge and skills in relation to one type of verbal communication (proverbs) in Japanese. Nineteen L2 novice learners of Japanese were involved in the study, and they telecollaborated with 23 native speakers of Japanese using Facebook. They learned Japanese proverbs through Facebook videos introduced by their Japanese peers, followed by in-class follow up sessions and a reflection log activity, and they then performed skits in Japanese. Their perceptions of their ICC knowledge and skills were compared using the pre- and the post-questionnaires, and their language production was analyzed. The study found that students gained a sense of accomplishment in learning the target element of verbal communication; however, they did not always execute the expressions in appropriate situations.