Authentic cultural communication: A collaborative
Intercampus Cultural Awareness Project
Joan Marie Boes-Naderer
InterSedes, Revista electrónica de las sedes regionales de la Universidad de Costa Rica,
ISSN 2215-2458, Volumen XXII, Número 46, Julio-Diciembre, 2021.
10.15517/isucr.v22i46 | intersedes.ucr.ac.cr | intersedes@ucr.ac.cr
R: Las diferencias culturales dentro de la sociedad costarricense fueron percibidas
como un recurso fundamental para el curso de Comunicación Intercultural que se ofrece en
dos campus regionales (Rodrigo Facio y Guanacaste) de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Este
artículo presenta los resultados de la creación de una auténtica experiencia de comunicación
intercultural a través de un proyecto de conciencia cultural entre ambos campus. El trabajo
se centra en un análisis de las perspectivas tanto de los profesores como de los estudiantes
sobre cómo el proyecto fue exitoso y cumplió efectivamente con los objetivos del curso. A
través de la investigación cualitativa, este artículo arma que el proyecto entre campus pre-
senta una oportunidad tangible para una comunicación intercultural exitosa y también una
coyuntura signicativa para la enseñanza colaborativa.
A: e cultural dierences within the Costa Rican society were perceived as a
fundamental resource for the Intercultural Communication course oered in two regional
campuses (Rodrigo Facio and Guanacaste) of the University of Costa Rica. is paper pre-
sents the results of creating a authentic intercultural communication experience through
an inter-campus cultural awareness project. e work centers on an analysis of both the
professors and the students’ perspectives of how the project was successful and eectively
met the course objectives. rough qualitative research, this article claims that inter-campus
project presents a tangible opportunity for successful intercultural communication and also
signicant opportunities for collaborative teaching.
Sede Regional de Guanacaste
Universidad de Costa Rica
Liberia, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
joan.boesnaderer@ucr.ac.cr
Publicado por la Editorial Sede del Pacíco, Universidad de Costa Rica
DOI 10.15517/isucr.v22i46.48052
K: Intercultural communication, collaborative teaching, English, education
P : comunicación intercultural, enseñanza colaborativa, inglés, educación
Comunicación cultural auténtica: un proyecto colaborativo de
conciencia cultural
Recibido: 11-08-21 | Aceptado: 30-08-2021
C (APA): Boes-Naderer, J. M. & Sánchez-Víquez, A. (2021). Authentic cultural communication:
A collaborative Intercampus Cultural Awareness Project. InterSedes, 22(46), 152–168. DOI 10.15517/isucr.
v22i46.48052
Andrea Sánchez-Víquez
Sede Rodrigo Facio
Universidad de Costa Rica
San José, Costa Rica
elizabeth.sanchezviquez@ucr.ac.cr
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153
Introduction
Intercultural communication as a eld of study is oen thought
to have begun through the creation of the Foreign Service Institute
(FSI) in the United States and the work of anthropologist Edward
T. Hall, in the 1950’s (Moon, 1996; Leeds-Hurwitz, 1990). Since
then, the realities of international business and globalization have
made this eld one of the most necessary and dynamically chang-
ing currently. Language programs have given prominent attention
to cultural aspects oen including courses dedicated to intercul-
tural communication in their curriculum.
e B.A. in English and English Teaching majors of the Univer-
sity of Costa Rica have sections where there is a special emphasis
given to culture in their literature and oral communication cours-
es. As a consequence, both majors must take the Intercultural
Communication course, which is the most advanced oral commu-
nication course of the study plan, requiring well-developed critical
thinking skills, and advanced linguistic and cultural prociency.
In previous years, professors on the central campus Rodrigo
Facio and the campus in the province of Guanacaste taught the
courses separately and relied on the didactic and experiential
learning resources available in their own particular region. Un-
fortunately, this le out a richer possibility of the interaction and
the cultural exchange between provinces in the country. With the
onset of the international pandemic of COVID 19, many of the
usual strategies were no longer available because of the collapse
of tourism and the sanitary measures to deter the propagation of
the virus. As a way to meet the objectives of the course and pro-
vide a genuine experience in intercultural communication, a col-
laborative Intercampus Cultural Awareness Project (ICCAP) was
designed and implemented by the professors teaching the course
at the two campuses.
Teaching/learning challenge
Trends of globalization have reshaped the interculturality of
all nations as it is necessary to develop strong skills in cultural
competencies in order to interact in multicultural settings with
a spectrum of cultural ideologies. Educational institutions at all
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levels have been including intercultural communication into their
curriculum. e prole of the BA in English and English Teaching
majors recognizes that the job markets for their graduates immi-
nently will be in elds where students must have the necessary
knowledge and skill to successfully interact and communicate
with others from multiple cultures. e principal objective of the
Intercultural Communication course and the focus of the ICCAP
project was to increase understanding of cultural patterns of be-
havior and cultural conditioning in language, behavior, and value.
In addition, several specic objectives were also addressed
during the development of the ICCAP. Within the larger Costa Ri-
can culture, there are subcultures and microcultures which can be
dened in part by geographical regions. For instance, students had
to consider Costa Rican identity in a wider framework aer work-
ing with students from other regions of the country. ey were
challenged with more diversity and diering points of view within
their project groups. is undoubtedly increased their awareness
of how culture inuences communication, and how it interacts
with social and psychological factors within the group dynamics.
A mixed intercampus group gave students the opportunity to be
consciously aware in order to reject notions of stereotypes, preju-
dice, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and; therefore, completing
another specic objective of the course.
e change in pedagogical modality (from in-person to on-
line classes) brought about many methodological and pedagogical
changes to the course syllabus. Above all was the diculty of how
to create meaningful intercultural experiences for the students.
Where in previous years a number of techniques such as guest
speakers, eld trips, participatory observation and in-class inter-
action were used, aer the pandemic these techniques were greatly
limited, and it was necessary to explore ways to create intercultural
interactions that were meaningful and productive through virtual
mediums.
e professors of the Intercultural Communication course
developed the ICCAP to replace the cultural awareness activity
which was usually done through in-person interactions in ex-situ
environments. rough the ICCAP, students from both campuses
worked together forming intercultural groups as there is cultural
diversity within these regions of the country. e project design
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was intended to provide students with tangible experience of in-
tercultural communication because they would share their cultur-
al knowledge and perceptions while analyzing and discussing the
theory of intercultural communication. e ICCAP proved greatly
benecial in demonstrating how and why collaborative teaching/
learning is so valuable for this and other courses. Intercampus col-
laboration is a technique that can be even more useful in post-pan-
demic times by combining the benets of in-person and virtual
learning.
Theoretical justication
roughout human history, cultural dierences have been the
cause for important conict. At the same time, those dierences
make each culture unique and rich. Acknowledging the fact that
cultural dierences can be troublesome is a decisive step into learn-
ing how to manage, accept, and desirably, embrace them. Cultural
diversity is now not only desirable, but indispensable in language
teaching: “Given that culture is embryonic and dynamic, as edu-
cators, we have a responsibility to provide students with learning
experiences that value the role of their culture in all learning areas”
(Joseph, 2011, p. 44). e theoretical justication for this project
can be divided into two main branches: intercultural communica-
tion and collaborative teaching/learning.
In regards to intercultural communication in university stu-
dents, it seems evident by now that so skills and cultural sen-
sibility must be part of any graduate’s prole. is study involves
two dierent groups that belong to the same country but to dif-
ferent cultural regions. Moreover, the communication and task in
general was done in English, which is the second language for all
the participants. e ability to transit from certain cultural forms
into others responding to the situation requirements is recognized
as cultural malleability. e concept of cultural malleability is a
term that the participant students practice constantly. It is strongly
related to cultural essentialism and the ability of each individual
to change it or adapt it. Malleability is understood in communica-
tive terms as exibility as opposed to xedness (Yalcinkaya et al.,
2018).
is population commutes among three levels of cultural
communication: the national, the regional and the linguistic. e
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national refers to the fact that 99% of the participants are Costa
Rican. e regional one brings all the particularities and uniqueness
of two dierent regions of the country, the Central Valley (Rodrigo
Facio campus) and the North Pacic (Guanacaste Campus). e
linguistic one addresses the fact that 100% of the participants have
Spanish as their mother tongue; however, this ICCAP was carried
out in English. As Zhang (2010) states in her article Developing
Students’ Intercultural Communication Competences in Western
Etiquette Teaching: “One cannot hope to have a good command
of a target language without adequate knowledge of the culture
related to that language” (p. 224). erefore, students had to
maneuver their cultural malleability skills in order to achieve the
task assigned. It is relevant to remember that:
Intercultural communication comes primarily out of an
interpersonal orientation and addresses the mutual nego-
tiation of social reality among participants. Because of the
necessity and reality of interpersonal aspects of our global-
ization, we can no longer neglect these aspects of any com-
munication among peoples around the world, whatever
problems we may be addressing. (Zhang, 2010, p. 225)
On the other hand, this is also a project that falls under col-
laborative teaching and learning. Collaborative teaching, collab-
orative learning or collaborative classroom are terms that can
be interchanged most of the time since almost all collaborative
teaching has the objective to lead a learning partnership. Accord-
ing to Brame and Biel (2015), cooperative teaching “can be formal
or informal, but oen involves specic instructor intervention to
maximize student interaction and learning” (para. 2). Following
this line of thought, this project was designed by two female pro-
fessors that portrait the challenges of intercultural communication
themselves. Both professors have dierent nationalities and come
from distinct cultural backgrounds. e importance of this kind of
collaboration resides in three main factors: exchange of teaching
experiences, leadership exemplication and team-work training.
Professors generally work independently from each other with
each educator being assigned dierent courses or groups. Collab-
orative teaching redenes the classroom limits and the teaching
possibilities. In collaborative projects it is imperative that all pro-
fessors involved are fully committed. e exchange of teaching
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experiences not only enriches the process, but also brings a par-
ticular scope from “the other” population which is crucial for in-
tercultural communication. For this project, the preparation from
both professors started ahead of students even knowing about the
project. is illustrates the importance of the second factor: lead-
ership exemplication. ere are many kinds of leadership, but for
this ICCAP the instructors focused on constructivist leadership,
which means: “facilitating the learning process, rather than direct-
ing it. At the core of the constructivist approach is that learners
control their own learning, not teachers” (Edith Cowan Univer-
sity, 2019). Lastly, this kind of collaborative projects show college
students a very common methodology in most globalized work-
places. Culturally diverse team-work is a reality that new genera-
tions must face. As Reynolds (2019), American-English freelancer,
states: “Multiple voices, perspectives, and personalities bouncing
o one another can give rise to out-of-the-box thinking. By of-
fering a platform for the open exchange of ideas, businesses can
reap the biggest benets of diversity in the workplace” (para. 6).
University professors ought to be aware of this global demand and
plan accordingly.
Methodology
e ICCAP didactic strategy consisted in an intercampus oral
production project. In this case, the term intercampus refers to
two dierent university sites: Rodrigo Facio and Guanacaste. As
explained before, both campuses oer the course Intercultural
Communication. Both professors teaching the courses decided to
have one of the nal evaluations for the course in groups including
students from both campuses. e groups had 4 to 5 students and
they were assigned by the professors.
e development of this ICCAP can be divided into 4 stages:
Planning, Introduction, Implementation and Results Presenta-
tion. Planning started when both professors identied a teaching/
learning challenge for both groups. is stage included a thorough
reection process about the feasibility and relevance that a project
like this could have in the student population. Professors in charge
also designed the guidelines for the dierent tasks, the deadlines
for each activity and the materials required.
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Particular attention was given to the design of the inter-
campus groups. As much as possible the professors tried to
make the groups balanced with a similar number of students
from both campuses. However, there were more students
from Rodrigo Facio’s campus so the project included six
groups of ve students (three from the Rodrigo Facio cam-
pus and two from the Guanacaste campus) and two groups
of four students with an even number from each campus.
According to Taijfel and Turner (1979) in their construc-
tion of the Social Identity eory, individuals go through
mental processes of categorization, identication and com-
parison when determining which groups are their in-groups
or which are out-groups. In other words, groups they feel a
part of or not. For the intercampus groups to succeed, the
students would have to feel identied with their new group,
since there is a perceived segregation of students from dif-
ferent campuses so that the group categorization is normally
based on the campus that the students attend to. To create
new categories (based on interculturality, diversity and task
objectives) would require for the students to feel identied
with their group.
e second stage, Introduction, started with the presenta-
tion of the guidelines to both groups and with a short video
conference including both professors. To enhance this inter-
campus group identity, professors from both campuses met
with the groups for an introductory session where the stu-
dents and professors introduced themselves. An overview of
the goals and merits of the project was given to the students,
and there was casual conversation between the students, as
well as an exchange of contact information so that they could
meet later on. is introductory meeting proved to success-
fully help the students identify themselves with the project
and with the other members of their new group. As they
worked and consulted with the professors in the upcoming
weeks it was noticeable that they felt strong ownership to
their group, and had the goal to work hard knowing that oth-
er groups were also carrying out this task.
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e students were completely in charge of the third stage: Im-
plementation. Each group decided how and when they would
meet to fulll the task. e task was to organize and participate
in a forum about a topic of their preference. Once students were
introduced and acquainted, they had to rst decide on a particular
topic studied in class. (e.g. stereotypes, feminism, ageism, cultural
shock, etc.) en, they had to organize a mini forum in which the
entire group would discuss and analyze the topic. e mini forum
had to be recorded and presented in a following session. e fo-
rum had to include a brief introduction to the topic, an analysis of
how the topic aects intercultural communication and personal
conclusions from the participants. e video had a maximum time
of 10 minutes and creativity was part of the evaluation rubric. Stu-
dents had to research in their own time about technological tools
to create a video.
e last stage, Results Presentation, introduced the challenge
that schedules were dierent for each campus’ group. erefore,
it was decided by the professors in charge, that the presentation
would be asynchronous. Each intercampus group would submit
their videos to their respective professor and later on the latter
would agree on a grade. Students’ presentations were on topics
such as prejudice and stereotyping, national identity, micro-cul-
tures, sexuality of the disabled, racism, ethnocentrism and even
Covid-19’s inuence in intercultural communication. Some inter-
campus groups focused on these topics within the realm of a group
in society such as people with disabilities or homosexual people,
which showed that they were able to manage the material learned
and apply it to specic contexts. In addition, several groups fo-
cused on more than one course content, showing their ability to
integrate the material and hence reinforce what they had learned
during the semester.
is project was designed using the task-based approach and
with a clear student-center emphasis. e role of the student in
this project was dual: they were researchers but also objects of the
research. Students had to review the theory studied in class and
search for new sources as it was a requirement for the project. At
the same time, as individuals in a society with dierent cultural
backgrounds, they were also protagonists in the task. eir experi-
ence, anecdotes, background knowledge and interaction with their
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peers from the other campus were an important input in their re-
search.
e professors were the intellectual creators of this project and
they performed a key role. Aer identifying the learning opportu-
nity to involve students from dierent campuses into carrying out
a project together, both professors invested in detailed planning
and troubleshooting before launching the project. At this point it
is fundamental to mention that the outcome of a project like this
depends a lot on the commitment and rigor of the professors. e
support given to this project by both educators was perceived as a
strong motivator for students in general. Aside from being orga-
nizers and enthusiasts, both professors accompanied each group
in the introduction process as a way to reduce anxiety and also to
witness that the project would start without any unexpected com-
plications.
Results and discussion
e course Intercultural Communication is a senior year
course for students of B.A. in English and English Teaching ma-
jors at the University of Costa Rica. As previously mentioned, this
is the last course of the oral production area. It combines theory
and practice. e rst half of the semester students are exposed to
key theoretical concepts about intercultural communication. e
second half of the semester is dedicated to apply the theory into
case studies, projects and media analysis.
is ICCAP involved one group from the central campus, Ro-
drigo Facio, and another group from the Guanacaste campus of
the University of Costa Rica. Table 1 displays relevant information
from both groups.
T
ICCAP I
Campus Schedule Number of Students
Rodrigo Facio’s group Monday and
ursday 17:00-18:50 22
Guanacaste’s group Monday
8:00-11:50 16
Source: IC professors
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A majority of 74% of students from both groups were between
22 and 26 years old. Additionally, 60.5% of both populations iden-
tify themselves as feminine and 39.5% as masculine.
e site Rodrigo Facio is the central campus from the Univer-
sity of Costa Rica and it is located in San José. Although this is not
the main focus in this paper, the student prole from the Central
Valley usually includes coming from urban areas and from fami-
lies with a medium income. On the other hand, Guanacaste’ stu-
dents prole incorporates families from rural areas and a tendency
to a lower income depending on the district (INEC, n.d). is is
just a reference since the UCR applies Admisión Diferida (deferred
admission) since 2015 in order to ensure equality in the admission
process (O’neal, 2020). Even though Costa Rica is a small country,
the dierences between regions can be highly contrasted. In fact,
testing real intercultural communication among college students
of the same age but dierent locations was one of the reasons that
propelled this inter-site project.
Aer the four stages aforementioned, students were asked to
take a survey called InterCampus Project- Assessment to evaluate
the entire project from their perspective. is survey was com-
pleted by 38 students from both campuses. e questions in the
survey were focused on three areas: content, methodology and
group interaction and perception. Initially, 66% of the participants
described the way they felt towards an inter-campus project as in-
terested, 23% as anxious and 8% as indierent.
In regards to content, all the participants agreed that this proj-
ect was appropriate for the course objectives and also that the dif-
ferent topics studied in class prepared them to participate actively
in it. More than 90% stated that the chosen topics helped them to
improve their own intercultural communication.
In regards methodology, students were asked to evaluate sever-
al statements about the project with Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree
and Strongly Disagree. irty students agreed that inter-campus
projects would enhance their learning process while eight stated
that it wouldn’t. is result was triangulated with other subsequent
questions to prove that some of those eight students responded pos-
itively about particularities of the methodology later on. Only one
student indicated that the introductions session mentioned before
was not useful; therefore, it was evident that students appreciated
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the introduction session and it eventually helped with the groups’
interaction.
It was reported that the internal negotiation of the process in
the Implementation stage was done respectfully by all but 2 par-
ticipants. Additionally, all participants except for one felt treated
as equal amongst their peers and all students considered that the
professors’ support was available and ecient. is might have
been inuenced by some strong and opinionated personalities.
In relation to time, ninety-seven percent of the participants con-
sidered that the time invested in this project was acceptable and
that the grade weight was adequate. Lastly, there was a statement
that read: “ere were technological and connectivity issues that I
would have not had if I had only worked with peers from my own
campus” (InterCampus Project-Assessment Survey), and it had
the most diverse response as it displays below.
F
T -
-
Source: Students’ survey
Finally, regarding group interaction and perception, around
87% of the participants stated that they used English sometimes or
almost all the time while planning, executing and presenting the
task. Only 13% stated that they never used English. is is remark-
able because students worked without professors’ supervision
most of the time. is is evidence of the motivation to communi-
cate in the target language and of their cultural malleability. e
answers to the question Do you consider that working with students
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from other campuses was a cultural experience? are shown in Figure
2. A little more than 80% of the population was conscious about
the cultural dierences between both campuses which reects an
adequate acquisition of the cultural concepts studied in class.
F
P’
Source: Students’ survey
Furthermore, 34 out of the 38 students would recommend this
type of project for future semesters of this course or other courses
in the future. is can be linked to the previous question, as they
recognized the entire activity as an eective and authentic eld for
intercultural communication in this course in particular.
ere were three open questions at the end of the survey. Par-
ticipants were asked what they appreciated most about this pro-
ject and the answers were varied: “e dierent perspectives that
we have within the same country”, “e fact that we had to adapt to
each other in order to have a nice outcome”, “ I loved the experien-
ce of sharing with people from dierent backgrounds. Moreover, It
creates campus bonds that address not only the academic but the
interpersonal aspect of education [sic]” (InterCampus Project-As-
sessment Survey). Participants were also questioned about what
they appreciated the least and here are some answers: “at it was
a done at the end of the semester (due to time)“, “It was hard because
there was some course content they were not familiar with and even
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though they were kind, I felt a bid [sic] judged by them. It was also
hard to organize the timing”. “ e topics were so basic“. In this item,
an important amount of answers were similar to this one: “e
problems we had because of the internet”; which locates their main
drawback to circumstances out of academic control. Nonetheless,
it is a valid and unfortunate recurrent input from students all over
the country and worldwide.
Finally, students were asked to describe their nal thoughts
about doing an inter-campus project and Figure 3 holds the re-
sults. Students could choose more than one option. Forty-ve
contributions described the project with positive adjectives. e
minority of students use challenged or indierent which were ex-
pected outcomes. None of the students described participating in
the ICAAP with a strong negative connotation. In terms of moti-
vation this is benecial because at the very least the project pro-
voked the students’ curiosity.
F
F -
Source: Students’ survey
Conclusions and recommendations
e implementation and later analysis of this project strongly
conrms the positive eects of authentic intercultural communi-
cation tasks in the learning process of the English students from
both campuses.
e students’ scope in regards the ICCAP displayed salient
positive aspects. To start with, students appreciate cultural
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communication challenges. It was clear in their answers to the
open-ended questions, together with the triangulation with ob-
servation and closed questions, that students were content with
this project. During the development of this project, students
from both campuses were able to overcome their initial concerns
and even stereotypes from “the other” population. is was in-
deed very fullling for the researchers since it is speculated that
an unspoken “rivalry” between the peripheral and the central
campus has prevented projects like this one before.
Another remarkable aspect was being able to apply an authen-
tic task in class. Despite all the anxiety at the beginning, the project
proved to be a great didactic strategy for this specic population.
is activity portrayed in real time and real life not only the mul-
ticulturalism of a small country like Costa Rica, but also several
concepts studied in class came alive, such as stereotypes, savior
complex, subcultures and many others. is scenario was an inte-
resting laboratory for students and professors to defeat the uncer-
tainties about colleagues and peers from the same institution, but
from another region.
From the teachers’ perspective this project showed positive
outcomes in dierent academic areas. First, it proved to be a suc-
cessful tool for collaborative teaching. Undeniably, remote com-
munication as a consequence of on-line classes was key for this
project. e geographical distance between the two campuses in-
volved and its consequential commuting time would have made a
project like this practically impossible before the Covid-19 pan-
demic pushed education to remote communication. Second, the
internal communication between professors turned out to be a
very refreshing update about the concepts pertinent to the course.
Just like the students, the teachers experienced internal cultural
communication challenges during the planning and design stages.
A project like this can easily create anxiety and self-consciousness
in the facilitators due to language prociency level, co-teaching
or personality traits. is activity proved to be a smooth way to
build positive colleague relationships and thus, collaborative pro-
jects. is was an innovative and successful collaborative teaching
project because, as it was mentioned previously, this kind of ini-
tiative is neither common, nor systematically encouraged by the
institution. It is considered successful due to the achievement of
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the initial objectives and also due to the positive feedback received
from the students from both campuses.
Finally, it was also demonstrated that assertive communication
can make a dierence between a tedious evaluation and a success-
ful intercampus project. is is an implicit objective of a course
like Intercultural Communication; therefore, it was rewarding that
not only professors but also students put in practice dierent stra-
tegies to prevent a potential cultural conict. e eort from the
students, as well as from the professors, was evidently bigger than
working with their regular classmates in their own campus. None-
theless, not one participant expressed discomfort about this. On
the contrary, the challenge was notably accepted.
is research strongly encourages intercampus collaborati-
ve projects in the superior education. e exchange of ideas and
experiences between professors from dierent locations brings
corporate cohesion and elevates the professional level of the sta-
. Time constraints and the correct motivation are obstacles that
could be worked out by the dierent coordinating Departments if
they include this kind of projects in their working plan.
In regards to class dynamics, it is considered necessary to inclu-
de more authentic activities and evaluative tasks, particularly for
college students. In a globalized world and taking into account all
the online possibilities that the pandemic pushed into education,
it is imperative to focus class evaluation in a task-based approach.
Furthermore, evaluative tasks must resemble real-life situations
in order to create a meaningful learning process for students. Au-
thentic tasks not only engage students signicantly more, but also,
they help build internal language processes that will undoubtedly
be used later on in their future careers.
Academic strategies such as this one can start a synergic and
positive relationship between dierent campuses. Collaborative
teaching is not only desirable, but mainly needed at the university
level. Small scale initiatives like this ICCAP can pave the way to
a more standardized and unied university. It is genuinely desired
that this project and its academic results may inspire others to ca-
rry similar experiences.
InterSedes, ISSN 2215-2458, Volumen 22, Número 46,
Julio-Diciembre, 2021, pp. 152-168 (Artículo).
BOES & SÁNCHEZ | Authentic cultural communication
167
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