Online projects as a form of internationalization at home in higher education

Abstract

In the modern globalized world, internationalization provides students with the opportunity to develop intercultural competence and global citizenship skills. Recent research on Internationalization at Home has proved that students and teachers can benefit from this approach even without travelling. The Covid-19 outbreak has lent new significance to the concept of Internationalisation at Home. An effective form of Internationalization at Home is organizing and holding events online. E-mail and online projects can be used as an effective form of intercultural literary seminars in particu lar, and as a tool for Internationalization at Home in general. There has been minimal research conducted on how short term online projects can be used as a form of Internationalization at Home. International e-mail and online projects which were implemented by Europa-University Flensburg (Germany) and Penza State University (Russia) showed the effectiveness and efficiency of applying the methods of project-based learning, upgrading intercultural competence, strengthening students’ motivation for the educational process (in our case—for learning a foreign language), and improving teamwork skills. Through intercultural communication within literary e-mail /online projects, the participants made exciting discoveries about their own culture. At the same time, they explored the ideas and insights of the representatives of another cul ture. All this can be described through one concept—“cooperative learning in intercultural context.” Similar initiatives can be implemented in various areas.