The aim of the paper falling into the category of secondary research is to present the main themes of current educational research in the field of the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) with special attention paid to perspectives for further teaching and research in this field. It is based on an article published previously (Zerzová, 2022), however, the focus of the article and the paper presented here differ since the article focused on the past of the research on ICC and this paper attempts to investigate its future.

One of the recurrent themes of educational research of ICC (not only) in the last decade has been the reconceptualization of the term and concept of ICC itself. We can find more than 50 terms in literature written on this topic that aspire to describe the skills needed for intercultural interaction, the most comprehensive and accurate one being the term intercultural communicative competence (Fantini, 2020; Byram, 1997).

Current research in the area of ICC can be divided into two categories: studies examining the reconceptualization of ICC and the concept of the so-called intercultural speaker and their role and studies focusing on the reconceptualization of ICC in the context of modern technologies and the so-called third-space culture. These two categories are interrelated and we can think of the second one as a necessary outcome of the first one (Zerzová, 2022).

The first category operates within the context of intercultural citizenship education aspiring to substitute the ideal of the so-called intercultural speaker with the cosmopolitan speaker (Ros i Solé, 2013) realising the controversial and unrealistic role of mediation in intercultural communication (Hoff, 2014) and the controversy around the legitimacy of measuring ICC (Rathje, 2007 as cited in Hoff, 2020). The difficulty in the systematic operationalization of ICC and teaching it is a necessary outcome of the complexity of the topic.

The second category focuses on ICC models from the perspective of technology that has advanced since they were constructed and therefore are considered insufficient as a result of this development. Many authors are calling for the inclusion of multiliteracy into intercultural education (Hoff, 2020; Thorne, 2010). The unique environment of the Internet creating the so-called third-space culture (Dooly, 2011) is different from the reality of face-to-face communication and including this fact into the concept of ICC is one of the biggest challenges for current research and teaching of ICC.

As a result of this development, current research can be divided into further two categories: studies focusing on the development of ICC in the classroom and studies including telecollaboration.

Current empirical research on the development of ICC including the use of technology outnumbers studies of the traditional approach and its results suggest its effectiveness in the development of ICC (Liu, 2019; Godwin-Jones, 2013).

Raised interest in this field and the influence of telecollaboration on intercultural education in the context of foreign language teaching is clearly visible in the number of the published studies and books devoted to this topic (Belz, 2003; O'Dowd, 2007; Belz & Thorne, 2006; Guth & Helm, 2010; Avgousti, 2018; Le Baron-Earle, 2013).

There are also two emerging topics to be found in the body of research published, the first one being gamification in telecollaboration projects in the context of language education and the development of ICC (Koivisto & Hamari, 2014) and the second one being the use of virtual reality technologies in the development of ICC, which seems to be the topic of interest for the following decades of educational research in this field (Hickman & Ackdere, 2018).

Research presented in this paper paid particular attention to studies from 2010–2021 retrieved from the databases of academia.edu, researchgate.net, scholar.google.com and Web of Science. After the initial search, 437 sources were included in the sample (of which 92 were research articles). 382 of them were excluded mainly because of the fact they were replicating or reproducing previous knowledge or devoted to a different research context than educational (e.g., business sphere). Of the remaining 55 sources, further 23 studies were excluded at the second reading for the very same reasons. The final examined body of research consisted of 32 studies. There were also two studies presenting the review of research in this field included in the study (Le Baron-Earle, 2013; Avgousti, 2018). Le Baron-Earle (2013) analysed 65 studies from the period of 2000–2012 focusing on computer-assisted language learning and the development of ICC. What is striking is the fact that most of these studies focused on the development of ICC of university students. In four of them, secondary pupils were included and two of them involved both of these groups. None of the studies focused on ICC development of elementary school pupils. What was apparent in the studies, however, was the tendency to pay attention to the so-called multimodal communicative competence (MCC) and its influence on the success of intercultural exchanges in the development of ICC (Hauck, 2007). The first systematic review of study that focused on the influence of Web 2.0 tools on the development of ICC was published by Avgousti (2018). Most of her findings correspond with the findings of Le Baron-Earle (2013). Since this review of study was published five years later, we can see a rise in interest in secondary and elementary school pupils and their ICC development in the studies. One of the most important findings is the fact that it seems that the tools used during intercultural exchanges influence ICC development to a much larger extent than other factors (Dooly, 2011). This is an important finding, especially in the context of another finding from the studies that claim the tools are more effective than traditional teaching in the classroom (Lee, 2009; O’Dowd, 2011). Hauck and Lewis (2007) claim that the level of multimodal communication competence of the students has a larger effect on their ICC development than other factors (for example age or gender).

The aim of the paper is to introduce current topics in ICC research and teaching worldwide with a focus on those that are emerging and likely to become the focus of research in the following years. ICC is gradually being reconceptualized at two levels that are interconnected. The first reconceptualization stems from intercultural citizenship education and aspires at substituting the so-called intercultural speaker with the cosmopolitan speaker (Ros i Solé, 2013). The second one which necessarily draws from the first one and at the same time influences it is a reconceptualization of ICC in the context of multimodality and modern technology communication channels and the so-called third-space encounters. Current research and attention paid to ICC development follow these two strands: the traditional approach to ICC development in the classroom and the approach involving telecollaboration. From the review of the body of research is apparent that the research on ICC development including modern technologies outnumbers the studies of the traditional strand of research (Liu, 2019). Liu (2019), however, claims that the conclusions of these studies stay on the surface and the reconceptualization of ICC in the online environment still needs to get more attention so that the relationship between identity, language and intercultural learning in this context can be defined. Research in this field also pays attention to the so-called multimodal competence and its influence on the success of intercultural exchanges (Hauck, 2007). It seems that ICC skills are strongly influenced by the choice of communication tools in online exchanges and that social presence influences it heavily as well (Hauck a Warnecke, 2012). Further research is needed in both of these areas as well as in the field of gamification and virtual reality and its use for ICC development.

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