Salmon's five-stage model and E-Portfolios: a pathway to intercultural communication skills in virtual learning during COVID-19

The article presents the research results of a transnational virtual exchange (VE) project, the Intercultural Digital Community Buiding conducted with EFL Algerian and multidisciplinary Turkish students that started a few days before the COVID-19 pandemic. It aimed to investigate how Intercultural Digital Community Building enhances participants' intercultural communication skills based on Salmon's five-stage e-tivities for an e-moderating and project-based training course aligned with the experiential approach. Additionally, it assesses the effectiveness of e-portfolios as reflective tools to document and facilitate the development of these skills. The research opted for a qualitative-dominated mixed methods approach, involving 26 students (n=15 Algerian and n=11 Turkish) over three months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings revealed significant improvements in the participants' intercultural communication skills, attributed to Salmon's e-tivities-paced online learning and the reflective nature of the course. E-portfolios' results proved effective for participants and researchers to track progress and reflect on learning experiences, suggesting that incorporating structured experiential learning and reflective practices into virtual exchange programs can substantially enhance intercultural communication skills. Future research should explore such virtual exchanges' long-term impacts and scalability across diverse educational contexts and academic fields.