The emergence of generative AI is reshaping the translation profession, shifting the translator's distinctive role from linguistic transfer towards intercultural mediation – a competence that remains less amenable to algorithmic reproduction. This paper argues that intercultural mediation should be understood not as an auxiliary outcome of virtual exchange but as a core professional competence that increasingly differentiates human translators from AI-supported translation systems. COIL provides a pedagogical environment in which such competencies can be cultivated through sustained interaction with culturally diverse peers rather than simulated classroom activities.
The paper draws on the DIALOGUE project (Developing Intercultural Awareness through Global Online Exchange, March–May 2026), involving over 50 undergraduate students from four Ukrainian universities and Ivy Tech Community College (USA). Although COIL is a well-established pedagogical approach (Rubin, 2017; O'Dowd, 2018), the asymmetry of lived experience between Ukrainian students navigating wartime realities and American peers represents a dimension receiving comparatively limited attention in the virtual exchange literature.
Empirical data comprise reflective essays (n = 28) and video testimonials (n = 10) voluntarily submitted by participating students, analysed using Braun and Clarke's (2021) reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis demonstrates that students increasingly described themselves not simply as language users but as cultural mediators, reporting greater confidence in negotiating culturally embedded meanings, recognising implicit assumptions, and managing communicative ambiguity across divergent social realities – competencies that remain difficult for current generative AI systems to reproduce consistently, particularly in situations requiring context-sensitive judgement, empathy, and intercultural negotiation.
Building on these findings, the paper introduces the DIALOGUE model – an empirically grounded pedagogical framework integrating virtual exchange, reflective practice, and intercultural mediation into translator education. The model complements AI-assisted translation by fostering forms of intercultural expertise that remain fundamentally human-centred.
References
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. SAGE.
Katan, D. (2004). Translating Cultures. St. Jerome.
O'Dowd, R. (2018). From telecollaboration to virtual exchange. Journal of Virtual Exchange, 1, 1-23.
Pym, A. (2014). Exploring Translation Theories. Routledge.
Rubin, J. (2017). Embedding collaborative online international learning. In Globally Networked Learning (pp. 27-47). Routledge.
Dr. Lyudmyla Kruhlenko is Associate Professor and Head of the Translation Studies Department at Pryazovskyi State Technical University (displaced from Mariupol to Dnipro, Ukraine), and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Bamberg (Germany). She holds a Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences (PhD) degree and specialises in language education, intercultural communication, and translation pedagogy. Her postdoctoral research examines linguo- and sociocultural competence development in Ukrainian and German higher education contexts across the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She is the Ukrainian lead coordinator of the DIALOGUE project (Developing Intercultural Awareness through Global Online Exchange), a COIL initiative connecting Ukrainian universities with the universities from the USA. Her broader research interests include Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), virtual mobility, and the integration of intercultural competence into language and translation curricula. She has presented her work at international conferences in philology, pedagogy, and intercultural communication.
