Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

There has been evidence in Europe and the United States a decline in multilingualism and, by extension, multiculturalism competence. Since solid proficiency in several languages, especially neighboring languages, promotes interaction and understanding with other cultures, i.e., mutual understanding, appreciative respect, and cognitive and emotional empathy - good and peaceful coexistence - the practice of multilingualism and multiculturalism is of great importance, not only with regard to a united Europe, but also to the ‘United’ States of America. With the rapid technological development in the field of digitization, there are numerous tools available for students to develop these competencies (e.g. learning apps, online language courses, tandem programs, etc.). However, there are hardly any empirical findings on how and whether students actually use the tools both in their studies and privately in the two cultural areas of Germany and the USA. The research questions here are located on three closely interwoven levels: Usage behavior of digital tools: When, and how often are digital tools used to build competencies in multiple languages. Representations of usage behavior: How do students experience and evaluate digital learning tools for building multilingualism and multiculturalism? From a methodological perspective, data on the above research questions is collected with the help of structured interviews. Students of the universities of Paderborn and San Francisco have been interviewed in a pilot study before an expansion of the survey to other universities is planned. The paper presents the basic theoretical assumptions of the project as well as the research methodology.