International Students' Tutoring Experiences and Cultural Awareness in the Digital Learning Companion Project

This study explored international students' experiences in online tutoring of remote learners from four elementary and junior high schools in Taiwan. A second objective of the study was to investigate whether online tutoring cultural exchange between the international students and the remote learners could promote cultural awareness. 39 international students from a Taiwanese university were paired with 39 Taiwanese remote school learners. The international students reflected on their tutoring experiences and cultural awareness using both videos and essays after participating in the online tutoring program for a period of ten weeks. The results indicated that by participating in the program, the international students gained some skills in teaching, learned a new language, received encouragement from their peers, and helped the tutees to gain confidence to communicate using English more. The international students also appreciated the opportunity that the project gave them to exchange their culture with the students of Taiwan. Although some of them faced a language barrier challenge, they were able to learn about some aspects of the culture of Taiwan from the tutees. Thus, being a more cost effective option for learning a culture than for instance visiting a country to learn a culture, learning institutions could provide opportunities and encourage students to participate in such cultural exchange programs.