Abstract:

The process of globalization and academic mobility actualizes the formation and development of cross-cultural communication as an important factor in university education. The paper considers the value of cross-cultural communication development in a multicultural university environment. Such qualities as tolerance, empathy, assertiveness, and patriotism are considered to be important in the sphere of cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural communication development is viewed as a meaningful part of the professional competence of a future Higher School graduate. The purpose of the research is to define the qualities necessary for successful cross-cultural communication between students and to find the main problems that prevent students from the improvement of the process of cross-cultural communication in online classroom. The study was conducted on the basis of the developed elective online course aimed at students’ cross-cultural competence development. The research involved 90 first-year students of different majors at Southern Federal University, Russia. The levels of students’ cross-cultural communication development were characterized and evaluated during the study. The paper takes into account the student’s opinion on the definition of the observed qualities of cross-cultural communication and considers the problems that students are facing in the process of cross-cultural development.

Keywords:

Higher School, cross-cultural communication, tolerance, empathy, assertiveness, online classroom, elective online course.