scholarly journals EXPERIMENT D‘ – SERIOUS GAME FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCES. CONCEPT, CONTENT, AND EXPERIENCES

Author(s):  
Gala Rebane ◽  
◽  
Maik Arnold ◽  

The paper presents an intercultural serious game ‘Experiment D’, which was developed in a cooperation between the junior professor of Intercultural Competence (Chemnitz University of Technology) and the chair of Social Work Management (FHD Dresden – University of Applied Sciences). The game was successfully tested and assessed in the summer term 2017 and 2018. The main plot consists of a communicative negotiation and strategic handling of a complex situation at university that involves various stakeholders, both within and without it. The game fosters cultural awareness and self-reflection, appreciation of and a creative approach towards diversity, as well as general communicative, social, and team competences. Since it does not require any specialised prior knowledge, ‘Experiment D’ potentially addresses students of all disciplines. The participants of the two test sessions were students of the study fields MERGE Technologies for Resource Efficiency (study component “Soft Skills”, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) and Intercultural Communication and Competence (compulsory study component Intercultural Learning, Faculty of Humanities) at the Chemnitz University of Technology. Ethnicity, nationality, first language(s), degree of proficiency in English and German, and academic background were all factors that engendered a highly diverse game setting. Aside from the concept of the game, as well as its methodology and didactics, the paper also discusses the results of its assessment.

2018 ◽  
pp. 307-318
Author(s):  
Marzanna Karolczuk

Comparing and contrasting cultural, lexical and grammatical aspects in the foreign language classroom has many advantages. These include the development of intercultural competence, cultural awareness and a new insight into the first language. Research shows that foreign language textbooks are basic teaching tools. Therefore, this article is an attempt to analyse Polish-Russian tasks and comparative content in Russian textbooks at the level of lower secondary school. Five textbook series for learning Russian, published between 1999 and 2009, are examined. These are В Москву, Времена, Кл@ссно!, Прогулка and Эхо. The findings show that these textbooks offer comparative reflective tasks and reconstructive ones.


Author(s):  
Oksana Babiuk ◽  

The article identifies the structure of translator’s professional competence, grounds its model and suggests the ways of its implementation. The following sub-competences necessary to be acquired by future translators have been identified and analyzed with the aim of providing best training: linguistic competence, intercultural competence, subject (thematic) competence, instrumental competence, psychophysiological competence, interpersonal competence, strategic competence, self-reflection competence. The role of the subject (thematic) competence for specialized translation is analyzed. The ways of the translator’s professional competence model implementation are highlighted.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Harris ◽  
Minjung Seo ◽  
Joshua S. McKeown

AbstractThere is a need for college students to develop global perspectives and gain cultural awareness to become responsible global citizens. Innovative ways to create such experiences are known as Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL experiences). COIL is a voluntary partnership between professors in different countries collaborating on jointly-constructed learning experiences to enhance international and intercultural understanding. The purpose of this article is to highlight a successful COIL partnership between students from SUNY Oswego in New York and The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic. 35 students participated in the experience that served as a platform to educate students through a health educator’s unique cultural lens. Benefits from the experiences regarding global outcomes showed that both US students (n=70.6%) and Holland students (n=61.1%) felt that they gained the appropriate skills and knowledge to use in their future careers. 70.6% of US and 61.2% of Holland students reported that the COIL experience introduced them to a new outlook and new ways of thinking about how they relate to the world. The current COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity to rethink education pathways and integrate global learning in our classrooms.Keywords: Global learning; COIL; Partnerships, Collaboration  


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 148-163
Author(s):  
Györgyi Horváth

Although there are many Hungarian Studies scholars teaching literature to Hungarian language learners around the world, there are practically no resources available about what is happening in these classes, and what linguistic, literary and cultural challenges they pose for students and teachers. In her study, Györgyi Horváth discusses her ten-year teaching experience as a teacher of Hungarian literature to Hungarian language learners within the Hungarian Studies Program, a one-year off-site university program offered to international students, accredited by the University of Pécs, and hosted by the Balassi Institute, Budapest. She discusses the institutional and program framework she worked in, gives a detailed account of the linguistic, literary and especially the cultural competencies that were in play in these courses, and also formulates some general methodological insights about teaching Hungarian literature to language learners. Horváth concludes that teaching literature cross-culturally widens the cultural horizons of students as well as of their teachers, offering them a space for increased cultural awareness and self-reflection.


Author(s):  
Beate Baltes ◽  
David Hernandez ◽  
Christina Collins

Racial tension motivates strife and violence in the metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, area. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a collaborative partnership, the Cultural Awareness Consortium (CAC), in making a positive impact on the attitudes of a group of diverse high school students regarding multicultural relations. The two theoretical frameworks guiding this study were Allport’s intergroup contact theory and intercultural competence theory originating from International Education and International Studies. The research questions concerned whether attending the CAC for 4 months, the treatment, changed students’ attitudes on multicultural relations, and whether a student’s gender or ethnicity was a predictor of changes in these attitudes. A single group, pre-experimental design with data collection from two administrations of the Student Multicultural Relations Survey was used in the study. Fifty-four students completed the survey, which yielded four multicultural relations scales (dependent variables), eight single-item attitudinal variables on multicultural issues, and two demographic variables (independent variables), and inferential analysis included <em>t </em>tests and multiple regression. According to study results, students’ attitudes on multicultural relations had changed significantly, and students talked to and mixed with students from different cultural backgrounds more after the treatment. Educational institutions providing experiences like the CAC can make a positive impact on students’ attitudes on multicultural relations. This can lead to positive social change as students increase their acceptance of others and take those attitudes and values with them into the workforce after they graduate, serving as role models of acceptance for their peers.


Author(s):  
Tonya Huber ◽  
Elizabeth R. Sanmiguel ◽  
Lorena P. Cestou ◽  
Mayra L. Hernandez

As teacher-preparation programs educate and evaluate candidates to become globally competent instructional leaders, special attention should be given to international service-learning. Immersing teacher candidates in real-world experiences beyond their comfort zone is a cornerstone of this theoretical inquiry, including self-reflection strategies grounded on Paulo Freire's liberatory pedagogy for social justice. The research team reviews self- and cultural-awareness experiences, dispositions, and profiles of university teacher candidates, during a semester of curriculum studies affording opportunities to engage in local, local to global, and/or global/international service-learning. The discoveries will inform teacher educators as they develop and strengthen critical inquiry and service-learning components of their own courses.


2015 ◽  
pp. 1283-1294
Author(s):  
Jacek Tadeusz Waliński

Portable multimedia devices shape the intensity of intercultural contacts not only through content consumption but also through content creation. Enabling learners to participate in content exchange via the Web 2.0 paradigm (audiences as both media consumers and media creators) can be employed to create new forms of acquiring knowledge. This study demonstrates an application of m-learning in a situated in-the-field examination of cultural diversity with the Linguistic Landscape approach. The application is shown from the pedagogical perspective of authentic, informal learning activities conducted in the framework of connectivism. The examination of cultural diversity is conducted in the context of a local environment, i.e. a location familiar to learners. This paper presents a scenario of m-learning activities intended to demonstrate that cultural awareness is often biased by subjective perspectives and stereotypes. Autonomous discovery of this phenomenon results in elevation of learners' openness toward other cultures, which contributes to intercultural competence development.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junhua Wang

In the field of intercultural business and technical communication, intercultural communication has been a regular topic in curriculum for decades; various teaching approaches exist for developing students’ cultural awareness and helping them achieve a theoretical understanding about the concept of culture, cultural differences, and cultural conflict. But quite often teaching and learning are limited in the classroom context, although it is true that study abroad programs are available for a small group of students. As a result, students do not have enough opportunities to interact with members of other cultures, which limits students’ potentials for gaining intercultural competence. This study explores the rhetorical nature of simulations, defines the perspective of using activity theory as a framework to understand the learning process occurring in simulations, and provides an intercultural simulation example to explain how instructors can incorporate simulations into the business and technical communication curriculum.


2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (S1) ◽  
pp. 51-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Williamson ◽  
Priya Dalal

AbstractAttempts to Indigenise the curriculum run the risk of implying the application of an “impoverished” version of “Aboriginal pedagogy” and the promotion of corrupted understandings of Indigenous knowledge (Nakata, 2004, p. 11). What is required, Nakata (2004, p. 14) argues, is a recognition of the complexities and tensions at cross-cultural interfaces and the need for negotiation between “Indigenous knowledge, standpoints or perspectives” and Western disciplinary knowledge systems such that meanings are reframed or reinterpreted. Attending to these cross-cultural negotiations and the pedagogical practices they imply are profoundly challenging for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators.This paper focuses on a project at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) which seeks to embed Indigenous perspectives in Humanities and Human Services curricula. It outlines the curriculum framework which was developed to guide the curriculum redesign in its initial phases. This is followed by a discussion of current research that has been concerned to identify material that can support the renegotiations of curricula endorsed by Nakata’s work. The research findings indicate that it is possible to identify a number of pedagogical approaches that can assist that process. Such approaches recognise various levels of engagement beyond the “intellectual”; they insist on a consistent unsettling of Western authority; they acknowledge Indigenous positions/positioning; and require critical self-reflection.


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