Recommendations for successful virtual exchange projects in early language education

Abstract

Virtual exchange (VE) provides ample opportunities for language, cultural and digital learning, even young learners can benefit from these authentic communicative situations (e.g. Dooly & Vinagre, 2021; Pennock-Speck & Clavel Arroitia, 2023). The Erasmus+ project INVITED (Integrating primary and preschool virtual exchange projects into language teacher education) seeks to promote (future) teachers´ competences to realise VE projects in the primary and preschool classroom.

The paper presents criteria for successful VE projects with young language learners that have been identified in the project. Several sources have been used in this process: a review of existing research on VE in the primary classroom, an online survey with teachers in five European countries on their experiences with and attitudes towards VE (INVITED consortium, 2024b, 2024c), and the criteria the European eTwinning programme uses to award their quality labels. After the discussion of the set of criteria that was compiled in the project, a practical example of a VE project between French and German primary school learners is presented to illustrate the criteria.