Intercultural effectiveness in the classroom: meaningful project samples

UNIVERSIDAD DE LA SALLE BOGOTÁ-COLOMBIA

1. Basic cultural and intercultural concepts 2.. Intercultural projects guideline 3. Meaningful samples 4. Students talking about their experiences 5. Activities to raise students’ intercultural awareness 6. How to be part of our intercultural network 7. Keywords

CULTURE

CULTURAL AWARENESS

INTERCULTURALISM

INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

INTERCULTURAL APPROACH

INTERCULTURALISM: Individual’s capacity to understand its cultural schema (beliefs, customs, behaviors, folklore) and give account of his identity in an interaction, without disregarding the identity of the other, and taking into account the cultural patterns of the other culture.

(Byram,2000; Porto, 2000; Abdallah-Pretceille, 2001)

*INTERCULTURAL APPROACH: An intercultural approach focuses on not only the description of, but the interpretation and the understanding of my own culture, myself within it and the OTHER (speakers of the other culture) and their cultural constructions and artifacts. *INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE: Basically, ICC requires that students acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and critical cultural awareness necessary to communicate interculturally.

*CULTURAL

AWARENESS: Cultural Awareness is the foundation of communication and it involves the ability of standing back from ourselves and becoming aware of our cultural values, beliefs and perceptions. Why do we do things in that way? How do we see the world? Why do we react in that particular way?

Intercultural strategies

•Formative research projects •Cultural events •Mass media discussions •Reading plan projects

Ethics and values

•Respect to diversity •Language and identity •Critical positions

New Technologies of information and communication NTIC

•Online communities •Videos •Blogs •Forums

INTERCULTURALISM

2. Intercultural projects guideline

AWARENESS

TRAINING

ACTION

• Short/midterm projects • Justifying • Description of sources • References

• Lesson plan • Contrasting aspects of both cultures in a self-production text.

• Defending • Illustrating • Activities • Final presentation

3. Meaningful samples

SAVE THE WORLD Janeth Montero http://masteringenglishskillsclass.ning.com/video/save-the-world-1-1

4. Students talking about their experiences

Pedro Cabrejo

Edwin Rosas-Angela Gonz谩lez

Natali Sarmiento

Catalina Herr贸n

5. Activities to raise students’ intercultural awareness •The teacher and students bring real-life objects connected with a particular culture into the classroom, such as figurines, food-stuffs, clothes, jewelry, masks, musical instruments and CDs with traditional music. The class discusses the uses and symbolic importance of these cultural artifacts.

•Analysis of documents-authentic or adapted-, roleplaying games, simulations, discussions, recipes etc., and aim at raising the awareness of the «other», who, although different, is no less equal.

5. Activities to raise students’ intercultural awareness •Intercultural projects based on the research /action approach seem to attract more attention; they invite everyone to create action programmes, bring up questions and creative and decision-making skills, and find out new training / informative needs.

•Analysis of the prejudices and stereotypes we have about other countries or nationalities through brainstorms.

5. Activities to raise students’ intercultural awareness •Critical thinking activities through cartoons.

- It is not clear whether we are moving towards a multicultural society… or a multi-ignorant society Do you agree with the man in the sketch on the need to make this distinction? Why? What do you understand by a multicultural society? And by multi-ignorant society?

Have you ever heard the expression «ignorance is bold»?

What do we mean by it? Shall we discuss together?

6. How to be part of an intercultural teachers’ network *http://www.learningteacher.eu/-The Learning-Teaching Network

*http://www.aulaintercultural.org/article.php3?id_article=2205 The network forwards and exchanges information and promotes new projects *http://wilderdom.com/games/MulticulturalExperientialActivities. html -Multicultural, Cross-cultural & Intercultural Games &

Activities

*http://www2.nau.edu/~jar/Multi.html

Multicultural Education Internet Resource Guide

7. Keywords *Integration

* Cultural manifestations

*Intercultural acquisition

*Awareness

*Identity

*Melting pot

*Critical position *Respect

*Diversity

*Tolerance *Modern education *Beliefs

*Mediation

*Freedom of speech *Global literacy *Autonomy

References

•Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon U.K Multilingual Matters •Byram, M. and Fleming, M. (eds)(1998) Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective. CUP •Kramsch, C. (2001). Intercultural communication. In R. Carter & D., Nunan (Eds), The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press •Corbett, J (2003) An intercultural approach to English language teaching. U.K Cromwell Press Ltd. •Mejía, A. M. (2006). Bilingual education in Colombia. Towards recognition of languages, cultures and identities. Colombian Applied Linguistic Journal, 8, 152-168.

•Chlopek, S. (2008) The Intercultural Approach to EFL Teaching and Learning. Retrieved December 2008, from English Teaching Forum, Website http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives/docs/08-46-4c.pdf

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