ABSTRACT
In this chapter we will focus on one current global challenge concerning digital shifts. These shifts take place in a globalized yet diverse world where foreign language learners need to become multilingual critical global citizens to navigate, take responsibility and contribute to a digital and multicultural world. One possible means to achieve this is by developing critical digital literacies (CDL) and intercultural competence (IC). Here, we will show how Virtual Exchanges (VE) practices based on intercultural encounters may be the vehicle for CDL, as other scholars have already pointed out (Hauck, 2019). We would then take this notion further and contend that such encounters also offer important opportunities for the ongoing development of CDL as well as agentive literacies, which would represent a major digital shift and transformation in language education.
We explore data of VE practices over a two-year period with Applied Languages undergraduate student cohorts (n=85). A mixed-method approach examining the data reveals:
Challenges in developing critical global citizens;
Urgent need for CDL, agentive literacy; and multilingual critical digital pedagogies.
The global pandemic health crisis presents an additional digital shift due to the enforced nature of online teaching and learning. It is our belief (Giralt, Murray & Benini, forthcoming) that global citizenship practices that promote CDL and IC need to be embedded into current educational settings in order to allow language learners to become independent lifelong learners and agentive global citizens while supporting educators to work towards a sustainable and democratic education.
