How much do I need to know about the foreign culture?

Answer:

Since students are working with foreign partners, you are no longer the major source of information. Your most important role is to make sure your students analyze, probe, compare, contrast, and apply appropriate reasoning.

Your students will probably not stop considering you as the ultimate authority and will keep asking you questions. Don’t hesitate to answer them, of course but urge them to ask question(s) directly on the forums to their foreign partners. In the process, students will realize that there is often no single answer, but different perspectives on a same subject.

It usually makes no real difference whether you yourself are a native speaker or not. Even a native speaker will not have all the answers.

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