Using pedagogies of discomfort and the arts in intercultural communication education: A virtual project on the Covid-19 pandemic

MELINA PORTO

Conferencia; The Hungarian Chapter of the European Association of Teachers Conference; 2023

The Hungarian Chapter of the European Association of Teachers

I argue that language and intercultural communication education in universities should be humanistic and address ‘discomforting themes’ related to human suffering in order to foster empathy, solidarity and a sense of belonging to the global community. I illustrate this premise with a virtual exchange project involving Argentinian and US undergraduates who explored the theme of the Covid-19 crisis. The students communicated online using English as their lingua franca to design artistic multimodal creations collaboratively in mixed nationality groups in order to channel their suffering and trauma associated with the pandemic.