Strengthening multilingual and intercultural communication competence in higher education

Project duration

22.1.2022 - 30.4.2025

Core fields of research

Languages, culture and society

Research areas

Education, belonging, and sustainable society

The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication

Co-operation

Alex Frame (Université de Bourgogne Europe); Romée Jager (Université de Bourgogne Europe); Kanako Nishizumi (Chiba University)

Faculty

Centre for Multilingual academic communication

Project description

The study examines what kind of multilingual and intercultural communication competence students want and can develop and strengthen as part of their higher education studies. Competence is understood and examined as a situational and contextual phenomenon, with the experiences and perceptions of students at the centre of the research. In addition to students' experiences, the research aims to highlight different pedagogical solutions that can best support the development and strengthening of multilingual and intercultural communication competence in diverse student groups and teams.

Kokkonen, L., Natri, T., & Nishizumi, K. (forthcoming). Building confidence in multilingual and intercultural groups: Student experiences from a short-term mobility program within Higher Education. Prologi.
Kokkonen, L., Jager, R., Frame, A., & Raappana, M. (2025). Cultivating criticality: Notions of “critical” applied to teaching and learning about intercultural communication in a Higher Education setting. In Fred Dervin (Ed.) Handbook of Critical Interculturality in Communication and Education (pp. 407 – 422). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003513940-32
Kokkonen, L. & Natri, T. (2025). Multilingual practices in Higher Education for enhancing (critical) interculturality. In Fred Dervin (Ed.) Handbook of Critical Interculturality in Communication and Education (pp. 161 – 175). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003513940-15
Kokkonen, L., & Jager, R. (2025). Chapter 5: Focusing on Interpersonal Relationships and Building Trust Within Intercultural Virtual Exchanges in Higher Education. In F. Dervin, J. Peng, & V. Tremion (Eds.). Interculturality Online. Ideological Constructions and Considerations for Higher Education. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003538974
Kokkonen, L., & Natri, T. (2022). Student experiences of critical multilingual and intercultural communication competence assessment in higher education. In M. Sommier, A. Roiha, & M. Lahti (Eds.), Interculturality in Higher Education: Putting Critical Approaches into Practice (pp. 60-76). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003322702-5
Kokkonen, L.; Jager, R.; Frame, A.; Raappana, M. (2022) Overcoming Essentialism? Students’ Reflections on Learning Intercultural Communication Online. Educ. Sci. 2022, 12, 579. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12090579