Facilitating Cultural Exchange and Fostering 21st Century Skills Using Skype in the Classroom

Abstract

The study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of Skype on the improvement of intercultural understanding and 21^st-century skills among a population of 36 Vietnamese university students. The student participants took part in a 10-week Virtual Exchange (VE) with teachers and students from other countries. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were employed as the two main data-collection tools. The findings show that the activities had a positive effect on the development of 21^st-century skills with 91.7 percent of students perceiving themselves fostering their critical thinking and communication skills. There was still room for improvement in other studied skills, especially in the skills of collaboration, self-direction, making local connections, and self- monitoring. Results also suggest that international VE using Skype can also maximize the possibility of participating in authentic communication and improving intercultural understanding. Feedback from participants suggests VE with Skype could be improved by using educational technology tools such as Microsoft Teams or Edmodo to keep track of the students' group work and also by providing students with the topic prior to upcoming sessions so they can prepare and get the most out of the VE.