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How can universities enhance their students' internationalisation at home? The need to find teaching methodologies that boost students' intercultural communication skills without travelling abroad has motivated the present study, carried out by two English lecturers from Florida Universitaria in Spain and Jade University of Applied Sciences in Germany. Research was divided into two stages: first, a deep analysis of the intercultural experiences organised in the past at both universities; and second, the implementation of virtual encounters with students from different cultures as tools to promote interculturality at the home university. This paper aims at showing the impact of those exchanges on boosting students' intercultural communication in English. Two groups of undergraduate students, during their English classes, worked synchronously on topics related to essential aspects of intercultural communication. The main teaching objectives of the Virtual Intercultural Communication (VIC) exchange were to increase participants' motivation for knowing other cultures, to raise their intercultural awareness, to foster their capacity to change perspectives, and to improve students' English language skills and their digital abilities. Through the outcomes achieved, students' self-reported feedback, and lecturers' observation, it can be concluded that virtual exchanges are effective tools to improve students' intercultural communication while they meet the English learning objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern times, the expansion of intercultural relations and changes, the strengthening of globalization in all spheres of society, the reform of educational programs, the development of all kinds of speaking activities in foreign language studies. It is known from the history of German language teaching methods that pragmatic didactics in the field of foreign language teaching methods already existed in Germany in the early 1970s. However, many researchers have thought that the development of communication skills instead of didactics and that this activity is superior in language acquisition. The pragmadidactics purpose of establishing mutual communication relations in the teaching of the German language is one of the main tasks of the field we are studying. Mutual communication skills determine communication relations with German speakers. To develop communication skills, appropriate forms of application and automatic transmission of pragmatic knowledge are necessary. In this process, the transmission of participants' thoughts during communication creates a basis for the formation and development of language knowledge, skills and habits. The training is a type of activity that allows you to communicate in German and strengthen social relations. The basis of foreign language teaching is, among other skills, the creation and formation of social communication skills, social activities, relationships and interactions of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]