A Tale of Two Truths: On the Degree Of Collaborative Actions in Student-Student Communication Implemented in Online Intercultural Exchanges

21st-century translator education aims to prepare futureproof professionals who will actively respond to the volatility (Rodríguez de Céspedes 2019; Mar czak 2024) and increasing diversification (Ehrensberger-Dow and Massey 2022) of the LSP industry. Amid calls for situated (Risku 2018), experiential (Pietrzak and Kornacki 2021) and collaborative (Kiraly 2016) learning, (tele)collaboration projects have been used to develop desired competences (Mastela 2022). The challenge lies in scarcity of data on the communication practices in which project participants engage. This paper reports on a study exploring students’ individual actions for social interaction (cf. Chiu 2000) in an Online Intercultural Exchange (OIE) to seek evidence of genuine collaboration and to consider the didactic implications of the findings for T&I instructors.