Abstract:

Problem Statement:
Interculturality should not be an educational ideal; it must be a necessity of educational process, especially because nowadays it is more and more a fact with wide reaching social and political implications. Usually, interculturality is closely linked with the cultural knowledge which is acquired through the physical interaction with others. The primary reason is that the education mission is to prepare students for lifelong learning and to integrate them in a social and cultural space so changeable and different, from ethnic, professional and human perspective. The social and cultural skills became a part of the employability skills. But this perspective of interculturality understanding imposes even another requirement: the need to improve and adapt the social and cultural skills in an noninstitutional space, in a nonformal educational system. The Covid19 crisis seriously underlines that the teacher-centered learning strategy is ineffective and the educational process must include more digital resources and techniques. This research offers modalities to develop interculturality in a virtual space using the collaborative learning as an educational method.

Purpose of Study:
This paper is based on the argument that the foreign students can be entrusted to learn about culture and civilization and to interact each other for better cultural communication using virtual space.

Research Methods:
This research uses qualitative methods. Data collection is done two ways: observation techniques on students' participation and activities on an educational platform for ten weeks (1) and survey technique (2). The study respondents were thirty-five foreign students at a public university who were attending language, culture and civilization studies.

Findings:
The paper proposes some theoretically and methodological aspects for developing the intercultural and social competences using collaborative learning methods in a virtual space. In this way, we propose some learning activities which can be organized with students. The results of research demonstrate that the online space should be an excellent educational partner if it is correctly used.

Keywords:

learning, cultural competences, virtual space, online learning activities.