Fostering students’ engagement with topical issues through different modes of online exchange.

This paper reports on two distinct models of telecollaboration the Soliya Connect Program, a synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)project, and the Intercultural Franco-Irish Exchange, an asynchronous CMC project – which seek to provide students with a learning space to promote a more politically engaged an reflective pedagogy (Kramsch, 2014). Using Herring’s (2007)faceted classification for computer-mediated discourse, it specifies the models’ inherent features and draws attention to a number of differentiating characteristics of the two projects. The analysis of qualitative data collected through students’ diaries and feedback questionnaires shows that both modes of online dialogue encouraged students to engage with peers and content and enabled them to achieve intended learning outcomes.