Promoting Attitudes of Openness: Intercultural Communicative Competence in a Brazilian-American University Exchange

Abstract

This study analyzes the intercultural communication of 19 Brazilian students with 18 American students during face-to-face and Facebook interactions over a six-week cultural exchange. Following primarily Byram’s (1997) model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), the study seeks to understand the attitudes of openness in each group by analyzing the students’ reactions and by interviewing ten participants: five American and five Brazilian students. Results point to the importance of providing a combination of in-class and outside class opportunities for cultural exchanges and also to an agreement among most participants that a deep intercultural understanding is a slow and complex process.