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Using Byram's Five Savoirs To Measure The Development Of Intercultural Competence In The Covid-19 Era During An Engineering Sojourn Abroad, Lars Erickson, Sigrid Berka, Iñaki Pérez-Ibáñez, Niko Tracksdorf, Michelangelo La Luna

Journal of International Engineering Education

This paper investigates the intercultural learning of students during a sojourn abroad that was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and their resulting return to the U.S. To measure students’ intercultural development and to characterize students’ comments about their experience abroad, the researchers used Michael Byram’s Intercultural Communicative Competence model and its five savoirs. The comments were elicited at four different moments using different elicitation tools. Comments were evaluated by the researchers who determined their applicability to any of Byram’s five savoirs. The results show that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, intercultural learning took place and students made gains in intercultural competence. …