Keiko IKEDA

Abstract: Is the rapid advancement of ICT and AI improving young people’s communication skills, or is it having the opposite effect? When this question is posed to corporate HR managers, many express concern. They often observe that young employees’ interpersonal skills are weakening as everyday communication becomes mediated by technology. Just as unused physical functions decline over time, underused social and communicative abilities may also deteriorate. With the adoption of AI, this trend may accelerate. AI is a powerful tool, but also a double-edged sword. Real growth requires real practice. Just as effective physical training requires proper guidance and effort, meaningful learning requires experiences that challenge students. Education must therefore help them move beyond their virtual comfort zones and engage in situations where communication, collaboration, and human judgement are actively exercised. This session explores how educators can help the AI generation rediscover the value of authentic human interaction. Intercultural mobility programmes provide learning environments by placing students in real social and cultural contexts that require presence, empathy, negotiation, critical thinking, and adaptability. Experts from Japan and Malaysia will share approaches to designing mobility experiences that use AI supportively while ensuring that genuine interaction remains central to developing communication and intercultural competence. Learning objectives: Examine case studies of mobility programmes involving Japanese, Malaysian, and other ASEAN students, and identify approaches that effectively strengthen intercultural competence through authentic cross-cultural engagement. Evaluate the benefits and limitations of using AI in educational and mobility activities, while identifying practical dos and don’ts for its responsible and balanced application. Explore ESL teaching approaches that develop logical thinking, critical thinking, interpersonal communication, and linguistic and behavioural competence as essential foundations for preparing industry-ready graduates. Generate ideas for collaborative mobility programmes that encourage AI-generation students to move beyond their virtual comfort zones and participate in meaningful real-world interactions. Build connections with other APAIE participants to support further partnerships and mobility initiatives that promote effective English communication and cultural skills. Target audience: Language instructors and international office staff interested in English learning through mobility programmes. Mobility programme coordinators seeking new international partners and collaboration opportunities.

Abstract: 　　Virtual Exchange (VE) has traditionally positioned human-to-human interaction as the foundation for intercultural learning, dialogue, and collaborative knowledge construction. The emergence of generative AI, however, invites institutions to reconsider VE as a Human–AI–Human learning ecology, in which AI does not replace human exchange but functions as an orchestrated mediating layer that supports more inclusive, reflective, and dialogic participation. 　　This presentation introduces a pedagogical model developed through the second phase of the Japan Hub for Innovative Global Education (JIGE). Drawing on COIL-based implementations and design experiments with partners across Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe, it examines how AI can be embedded across the VE learning cycle. Before exchange, AI can enable discourse rehearsal, linguistic preparation, contextual orientation, and confidence-building. During interaction, it can provide language support, participation prompts, and scaffolding for collaboration across linguistic and cultural differences. After exchange, it can facilitate reflection, perspective expansion, and critical examination of assumptions, while prompting students to interrogate both their own thinking and AI-generated responses. 　　The session addresses persistent inequities in VE, including linguistic hierarchy, uneven participation, confidence gaps, and power asymmetries. It proposes learning ecology design strategies that align human relationships, facilitation, digital tools, and reflective practice to deepen—not dilute—global learning. Learning objectives: - Understand the Human–AI–Human (HI–AI–HI) model as a learning ecology in which generative AI augments, rather than replaces, intercultural dialogue and collaborative learning. - Identify practical ways to integrate AI across the virtual exchange cycle, including pre-exchange preparation, live interaction, collaboration support, and post-exchange reflection. - Examine how AI-enabled design can help address persistent inequities in Virtual Exchange, such as linguistic hierarchy, uneven participation, confidence gaps, and power asymmetries. - Gain practical design principles for aligning human facilitation, AI tools, intercultural learning objectives, and reflective assessment in next-generation COIL and Virtual Exchange initiatives. - Consider how to encourage students to engage critically with AI-generated content while maintaining human agency, ethical awareness, and meaningful intercultural meaning-making. Target audience: This session will benefit academic staff, instructional designers, international education practitioners, and institutional leaders involved in COIL, Virtual Exchange, or blended mobility. It is especially relevant to those exploring ethical and inclusive uses of generative AI in intercultural learning.