2- Shows interest to exploring own and online partners' cultural context(s) as part of the online exchange.

 The first time we met, we were able to talk about our cultural context because we had previously shared our introductory videos. This allowed us to talk about our personal lives and contexts in the first meeting. One of the things that surprised me the most about the group was that the Illinois’ partners were not actually from the United States: one participant was from Russia, and the other was from Taiwan. They both had a good level of English. Another interesting aspect of intercultural information exchange is that it is difficult to predict participants´ reactions to conversation topics. For example, the Russian participant was a strict organiser but also took great interest in all participants´ views. At first, this enthusiasm surprised me, because this character trait was not shared by participants in other projects I had previously worked on.