Intercultural Skills

In school, there are two main areas where intercultural skills can be developed:

·         in the preparation for trips abroad or for the hosting of foreign guests,

• to integrate students with a migrant family history.

In this handout, only the first purpose is discussed.

We take it for granted that a school with a European profile offers its students the opportunity to get to know a foreign culture. This means developing international contacts by such means as

·         exchange programmes,

·         international work experience schemes,

·         study visits,

·         NEOS workshops,

·         projects in the Lifelong Learning programme of the EU,

·         E-twinning, e.g. through e-mails and chats,

·         multi-cultural project days at school,

• competitions.

To develop the intercultural skills of our students, two steps must be taken:

1. students must get to know the foreign culture,
2. they must find out about the similarities and the differences between the foreign culture and their own.

We can identify three areas in which the intercultural skills of our students can be developed:

1. giving the students information about the culture and the history of the country that they are going to have contact with,
2. preparing them for problematic situations in which cultural rules and expectations differ,
3. give them the opportunity to do guided research in connection with a trip abroad.

 1. Culture and History

Ideally, the students should be taught about those aspects of the culture and history of the target area that are relevant to them and their stay. However, the amount and level of information has to be adapted to the age of the students, their interests and the relevance of the information for the target area.

The information might include:

• the geography of the place,
• symbols of the country and the town (e.g. the flag),
• information about the population, e.g. minorities,
• religion,
• the local language(s), including dialects,
• the local economy,
• local food,
• differences in behaviour (see 2.),
• monuments and art,
• politics,
• history.

The information can be acquired through self-study based on material provided by the teacher and the Internet and other media. Some information would be included in the guided research during the stay (see 3.) and need not be included here.

Generally, the students will pay more attention if the information is highlighted by some anecdotes and challenging questions.

 2. Intercultural Problem Areas

Between any two cultures, there are areas which can cause problems and embarrassment: situations where the behaviour that is expected from you is different from what you know from your own culture. It is important that we teach our students about these situations and how to behave in them.

How do we as teachers identify such problem areas? Information about this can be gathered from

• guide books,
• books dealing with the culture of a country,
• personal experience,
• teachers from the partner school (e.g. via e-mail).

Common examples of problem areas are the following:

• child-parent relationships,
• politeness, apologizing,
• punctuality,
• complaining,
• eating habits,
• planning vs. improvising,
• patriotism and attitudes towards foreigners,
• drinking and smoking,
• swearing,
• dress codes.

This is not a comprehensive list; the problem areas vary, depending on what countries are involved.

For teaching our students about the intercultural problem areas, we have a number of possibilities:

• tell them anecdotes or funny stories based on personal experience (told by the teacher or by a student who has already been to the country),
• prepare info texts that are specially written for the students,
• create lists of dos and don’ts,
• supply phrases for appropriate behaviour in certain situations,
• have the students do role-playing, ideally with the help of model dialogues and media such as CDs and videos,
• make the students do exercises in which they have to identify proper and improper behaviour.

It is necessary to work with active involvement and language practice on the part of the students.

For host parents on international exchanges, a checklist should be provided which tells them how to deal with their foreign guest and what to explain to him or her to avoid difficult situations during the stay.

Incidentally, it would be a very good idea for an international project or for a NEOS students’ workshop to work on such problems areas, identifying them and developing material (e.g. dialogues or video scenes) which can be used for teaching. We find there is a shortage of teaching material in this field which could thus be filled.

3. Guided Research

The basic idea here is to give students the task of researching the culture of the place they are travelling to and make them compare it with their own, thus finding out about important differences. Ideally, this should be done as project work during their stay abroad, but with some preparation before the trip and with the opportunity to evaluate and present their findings afterwards.

It is desirable that the students who take part in such a trip can be selected from a larger number of applicants. Their behaviour, motivation, social skills and perhaps their ability to host a guest should be taken into account.

The preparation for such a trip can involve self-study with just a few meetings with the teacher, especially if we are dealing with bright students, but ideally some teaching time is necessary for the preparation and the evaluation. On the basis of a double period per week, we recommend 4 to 6 months before the trip and 1 to 2 months afterwards. Some of this work can be done during the stay if time is reserved for this and if a suitable room is available at the place where the group is staying.

Ideally, two teachers should be available for such a work. It is advisable to include a teacher from a subject other than the foreign language that the visit uses.

It is very helpful to equip the students with a brochure specially prepared for the trip which offers them written information, maps, phrases, vocabulary, advice for certain situations, necessary data such as phone numbers, addresses and the programme of the visit, but also space for their own notes.

Possible topics for the students’ guided research are:

• cuisine / food / the (foreign) origin of dishes in the target culture
• supermarkets and shopping in general,
• houses (outside and interior),
• school life,
• places of entertainment and social activities for young people,
• rules for smoking and drinking among youngsters,
• sports,
• transport,
• music,
• body language.

The following material should be provided for the preparation of the research:

• material from the Internet,
• material fom books, newspapers, magazines and brochures,
• photographs (can be taken on previous visits for the purpose of presenting certain aspects of the target culture),
• presentations from previous trips,

• advice for the preparation of interviews and surveys.

During the guided research, the students can use the following methods:

• keeping a diary,
• taking photos or doing videos,
• collecting stuff for scrapbooks,
• doing mini-field trips in groups of no more than 4 students,

• doing interviews or surveys, possibly audio-recording the answers.

After the trip, the results can be presented in a number of ways, each of which requires some editing of the material that has been collected:

• PowerPoint presentations,
• videos,
• slide shows,
• exhibitions,
• scrapbooks,
• brochures,
• web pages,
• articles or reports (e.g. for a school magazine),

• reports in the local media.

To increase motivation, the work should be evaluated and marked by the teachers.

Carolina Gisbert Verdú

Cristina Ghermandi

Daniela Pandolfi

Ewa Stawczyk

Friedhelm Baguette