In this paper the process of building an international student community is explored. Strategies discussed include guided interaction within a virtual environment between home students studying in their own culture and international students studying at a distance. The context includes both the state and private sector in South East Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. The subject is a Master of Arts in Education for practising in-service teachers of English. Through exchanging teacher narratives, students identify shared concerns and values about their profession and recognise connections with their peers in apparently widely different cultural settings. Student and tutor evaluations suggest that participants developed the competence of recognising connections between their own meanings and behaviours and those of others. They also deconstructed their assumptions and unexamined beliefs through engagement with others. The paper concludes by analysing how these competences impacted on the self-knowledge and practice of the participants, and suggests the generative principles which made this learning effective. (Contains 1 table.)