Using

Computer & Internet

to enhance

Intercultural Learning

Bernd Rüschoff – Universität Duisburg-Essen

Content:

• Intercultural Learning: an explication

• Language Learning: theoretical & methodological considerations

• New Technologies & (Intercultural) Learning

• Examples

Aus einem Online-Reiseführer

Druckerzeugnisse können heikel sein. Mit dem Bild oder Photo bestimmter Personen bekommen Sie im Land X oder in Y Probleme, in anderen Ländern mit dem Playboy. In jedem solcher Fälle wird die Einfuhr als unerwünschter Akt gewertet, da Sie landesübliche Wertvorstellungen ... unterlaufen.

Tipp: Nehmen Sie die Wertvorstellungen anderer Kulturen ernst, auch wenn Sie

sie nicht verstehen.

Quelle: www.meyer-reisefuehrer.de

Intercultural Competence?

Byram's model of ICC (1997)  • Attitudes of curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one's own

• Knowledge of social groups and their products and practices in one's own and in one's interlocutor's country, and of the general process of societal and individual interaction.

• Skills of interpreting and relating: ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents [and events] from one's own.

• Skills of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate [appropriately] under the constraints of real-time communication and interaction. • Critical cultural awareness/political education: an ability to evaluate critically … perspectives, practices and products in one's own and other cultures and countries

• Attitudes ...

• Knowledge ...

• Skills & Willingness ... to discover/put into perspective to (inter)act appropriately

• Cultural Awareness ...

The linguistic dimension in language learning is seen as consisting of a multiple of strands

– including

• reflection upon learning progress• sociocultural competence• functional-notional categories

(European Framework of Reference for Languages)

i.e., learners should be given the tools & frameworks for learning to build knowledge instead of simply consuming it,

thus acquiring

• language competencies & skills • strategic competencies

• language-specific awareness • learning-specific awareness

• cultural awareness

... a place, „… which grows in the interstices between the cultures the learner grew up with and new cultures he or she is being introduced to.“

(Kramsch, 1993, 236)

Kramsch talks metaphorically of a bridge somewhere in between the cultures, in the middle of which one ideally meets in intercultural encounters.

The „Third Place“ is ...

(Inter)cultural learning must take into account attitudes, skills and critical awareness as well as knowledge of the target culture.

Any course in Cultural Studies must therefore provide activities and content which will support the development of all these elements as opposed to merely supplying historical and/or up-to-date factual information on the target culture.

The „Third Place“ is best „approached“ ...

... by means of contact-based, process-oriented, as well as project-based learning, in order to discover & accept

• the similarities, but also

• the differences between cultures

and thus develop true intercultural competence.

Process (1) : all learning tasks/activitiesshould be as close as possibleto real-life activities.

Products (1/2): may be (1) the starting point (example)

or (2) the result of such activities.

Prosess (2): reflection on the products AND (ABOVE ALL) on the processes of production is an essential and integral part of (self)ssessment & (self) evaluation,

e.g. via learners’s logs, portfolio …

Examples:

• Projects (Encounter) = real-life task(process/product)

• Learner Wikis = start: real product(product/process)

• Photosoap = aim: real product(process/product)

Encounter Projects

Learner Wikis & PodCasting

(collaborative writing/production)

Photosoap

Thank you for your attention

www.uni-essen.de/anglistik