Virtually There: How Two Classes Connected Across the Atlantic During COVID-19
How would you like to visit Europe, for free and with no jet lag ? University of South Carolina Beaufort students recently had this unique global learning opportunity through a virtual exchange program with a university in Paris. During COVID-19, educators worldwide have had to develop new program models, practices, and technologies to keep students engaged and learning despite lockdowns and other restrictions. Because they eliminate the risks of physical travel, virtual exchange programs have flourished during the pandemic. Live video conversations and joint class sessions let students build international connections with college students in other countries and practice the languages they are learning.
At USCB, Dr. Juanita Babet Villena-Alvarez teamed up with Professor Nathalie Callies from the Universté de Paris-Nanterre’s-Institut Universitaire de Technologie to fill the gap when both universities’ study abroad programs were cancelled this year due to the pandemic. Dr. Villena-Alvarez first initiated the virtual classes with Professor Callies in 2017, but the sessions took on a new importance this year.
The two language instructors use Teams by Microsoft to conduct joint classes and the result is an enriched environment filled with cultural discovery, fun and language practice in French and English. This year, the global learning opportunity also provided the students with a glimpse of how other cultures and other people of their age are coping with the pandemic.
Dr. Villena-Alvarez said her goal for the virtual exchange was to get her students excited about learning French and Francophone culture.
“COVID was weighing on my students. You could feel it when you walked into class. The normal spark and animated discussions about French and American cultural divergences were not there,” she said. “It seemed like they thought, ‘Since it is impossible to visit France because of COVID, why make the effort? Oh, it’s required.’”
The results of the virtual exchange exceeded the expectations of both the instructors and their students.
“USCB Students were chatting with Parisian students outside class time —some for over two hours,” said Dr. Villena-Alvarez.
Topics of conversation in the joint class sessions included Florida, pets and the French engineering students’ passions for aircrafts, cars, motorbikes and space tech.
“It was for my students a way to travel and dive into another culture, getting the opportunity to talk with the American youth beyond stereotypes, enjoying their common points and differences,” said Professor Callies.
The two groups of students also played the game “Two Truths and a Lie,” where everyone had fun trying to guess among three statements made by each student to discover the falsehood. Olayah Safouan, USCB Student Government Association-Secretary/Treasurer, told the French students that she was Morrocan, had family in Paris and owned a cat. The Parisians chose correctly that the feline was pure fiction.
Dr. Alvarez said that participating in the joint classes caused the USCB students to interact more with each other, and the same was true for the Parisian students, who spend time together mostly on video chat due to capacity restrictions in place for universities in France. The conversations with the American university students were a way for them to ease their isolation.
USCB psychology major Gabrielle Idsall summed up the experience of the virtual exchange when she said, “We are social beings, and we need human interactions. This has been a refreshing experience for us all.”
USCB Students in Dr. Juanita Babet Villena-Alvarez’s French class spoke with engineering majors at the Universté de Paris-Nanterre’s-Institut Universitaire de Technologie in a virtual exchange.
