I artikeln redogörs för ett fem veckor långt online-projekt som upprättade en interkulturell dialog mellan studenter från olika delar av världen. Projektet knöt an till aktuella internationaliseringsstrategier inom akademin och var ett försök att applicera strategierna på en lägre hierarkisk nivå, det vill säga inom enskilda kurser. Studenter från fyra universitet i Chile, Spanien, Senegal och Sverige deltog i gruppdiskussioner online om ämnen relaterade till utbildning. Deltagarna från Senegal och Sverige rekryterades bland studenter som utbildade sig till spansklärare eller läste fristående kurser i spanska. De spanska och chilenska deltagarna rekryterades bland studenter från andra typer av lärarutbildningar. De frågor som diskuterades i studentgrupperna identifierades och valdes ut av deltagarna själva genom en inledande brainstorming-aktivitet. Så långt det var möjligt bestod varje deltagargrupp av representanter från samtliga inblandade nationella sammanhang. Sex lärare från de medverkande universiteten handledde grupperna. Förutom det övergripande målet att uppnå ömsesidig förståelse och samarbete genom onlinediskussioner, var ett ytterligare mål att ge studenter från universitet i icke-spansktalande sammanhang möjligheter att aktivt använda spanska som arbetsspråk. I artikeln diskuteras för- och nackdelar som både studenter och handledare stött på under projektet, samt potentiella förbättringar och möjligheter att inkludera liknande modeller på svenska universitet.

The present paper reports on afive-weekonline project thatestablished an intercultural dialogue among studentsfrom different parts of the world. The project is framed within the internationalisation strategies that are being implemented in Swedish higher educationand is an attempt to apply thesestrategies at a lower hierarchical level, that is, within individual courses, to fosterinter-faculty collaboration with universities in other countries. Students from four universities in Chile, Spain, Senegal,and Sweden participatedin online group discussions on topics related to education. Thetopicswere identified and selectedby the students themselves through abrainstorming activity. As far as possible, everygroup includedrepresentatives from each national context. Six teachers from the same universities supervised the student groups. Apart from the overarching goal of achieving mutual understanding and cooperation through online discussion, the project also aimed at providingstudents from universities in non-Spanish speaking contexts with opportunities touseSpanish as a working language. Participants from Senegal and Sweden were recruited fromSpanish courses and courses aimed at training future Spanish language teachers. Students from Spain and Chile were recruited from other kinds of teacher training programs. The article presentsbenefits and drawbacks encountered during theprojectby students and supervisors. It further discusses potential improvements and possibilities for the inclusion of similar models in Swedish universities.

One of the most intriguing lines of investigation suggested by Foster (2020) refers to the relationship between free vocabulary use and fluency performance measures in speech. The hypothesis of a strong relationship between vocabulary and fluency had already been formulated also regarding writing, since one of the definitions proposed for writing fluency can be summarised as the speed of lexical retrieval while writing (Snellings et al. 2004). Thus, being a fluent writer, at least according to such slightly narrow definition, would be a consequence of being able to quickly access the mental lexicon in order to retrieve the lexical items needed.

The present study investigates the written production in a narrative and a decision-making task by Swedish university students of Spanish as a foreign language. The relationship between lexical richness (diversity and sophistication) and fluency measures is analysed with the aim of finding possible changes due to the different degree of task complexity. The result showed that, when manipulating task complexity in both task types, the relationship between lexical richness and fluency turned out to be unclear, as it varied in unpredictable ways depending on the learners´ overall proficiency and passive vocabulary knowledge. Implications, limitations, and promising future lines of investigation will be discussed in light of previous research.