ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the intercultural affordances that came into play during the development and implementation of a multimodal French-British pedagogical project grounded on the action-oriented learning approaches recommended by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. This project is an ongoing bi-cultural, long-distance collaborative translation workshop created within the framework of a partnership between a British and a French university. The interaction between the participants is structured around several synchronous class sessions during which students and instructors engage with one other via videoconferencing or in person. The physical distance separating the two groups of students appeared to be a handicap to overcome, with technology such as videoconferencing coming to 'repair' the problem, leading instructors to use this technology to replicate a standard classroom situation. By contrast, intercultural affordance was amply provided by students' use of other tools, such as point-to-point video chatting via Skype, and Face time.
