Learning to engage across difference: intercultural communicative competence and global awareness through telecollaboration in Algerian higher education

In an increasingly globalised and digitally mediated higher education landscape, telecollaboration has gained prominence as a means of fostering intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and global awareness where physical mobility remains limited. This qualitative study explores how sustained intercultural telecollaboration, combined with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-oriented collaborative projects, shaped Algerian university students’ intercultural learning and global orientations. Seven students participated in a three-month telecollaboration programme with peers from the United States, Ukraine, and Lebanon. Data from pre- and post-programme semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation of online exchanges, and interviews with teachers and the programme coordinator were analysed thematically and interpreted through Byram’s ICC model and UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education framework. Findings indicate that sustained telecollaboration fostered intercultural attitudes, communicative confidence, critical cultural awareness, and global awareness. Students moved from ethnocentric and essentialist interpretations towards more reflexive, dialogic engagement with cultural difference. SDG-oriented projects strengthened global awareness and shared global concerns, but did not translate into enacted global civic participation. Global citizenship development remained largely cognitive and socio-emotional, constrained by structural and assessment-related factors. The study highlights both the pedagogical potential and limitations of virtual exchange for intercultural and global learning in an under-researched Global South context.