- •1. Answer the questions.
- •2. Read the definition of intercultural communication.
- •3. Read the quotations and share your opinions in small groups. What evidence can you present to debate?
- •4. Elicit your background knowledge of the following and answer the questions.
- •1. Skim the text and choose the best title:
- •1. Match the following essential key concepts of intercultural communication to their definitions taken from Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary.
- •2. Fill in the gaps with key concepts of intercultural communication given above.
- •2. Complete the text with the words from the list.
- •3. Find the key concepts of intercultural communication in the text above to match given definitions.
- •4. Read the text again and discuss the following questions in pairs.
- •Vocabulary
- •3. Vocabulary extension
- •1. Read the text and explain its main idea.
- •2. Answer the following questions.
- •Inversion
- •1. Study the following rules
- •Inversion after 'So' and 'Such'
- •Inverted Conditional Forms
- •2. Read the extract and retell it to your partner using inversion where relevant.
- •1. Read the statement and share your opinions in small groups.
- •2. Listen to the recording and take notes to answer the questions.
- •3. Listen again and fill in the gaps with suitable words.
- •1. Read the proverbs about languages and share your opinions in small groups. Support your opinions with any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
- •If you want people to understand you, speak their language. (African proverb)
- •2. Write a brief summary of your discussion about proverbs and present it to the group.
- •Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning
- •2. Read the text again and choose the correct answer.
- •3. Answer the questions.
- •1. Chart the history of your English language learning over the years in a piece of paper. Talk about your charted histories taking into account the following:
- •2. Listen to the text and decide whether these sentences are true (t) or false (f)
- •3. Listen again and fill in the gaps with suitable words.
- •5. Answer the following questions comparing and contrasting the facts given in the recording.
- •1. Discuss the following issues in small groups.
- •2. Read the following excerpt and comment on it.
- •Teaching and Learning Intercultural Awareness
- •2. Scan the text and decide whether the following statements are True or False
- •3. Read the text again and answer the questions
- •4. Cover the extracts and look at the headings. Tell your partner what techniques can be used to develop intercultural awareness.
- •1. What are the pros and cons of multiculturalism? Complete the table with your partner. Change your partners and share your ideas.
- •2. Listen to the recording and decide whether the following sentences are true (t)
- •3. Look at the words below. Try to recall the context where the following words are used.
- •4. Listen again and write down some questions you would like to ask the class. Ask the group your questions.
- •5. Express your opinions on the following issues.
- •4. Analyse the answers and create a brief presentation. Present it to the group.
- •Barriers to Effective Intercultural Communication
- •Mixed Conditionals
- •1. Study the following grammar rules
- •2. Complete the sentences with the appropriate form of the verb.
- •1. Express your opinion on the following.
- •2. Read the text.
- •Intercultural Communicative Competence
- •3. Answer the questions in pairs.
- •1. Skim the text and choose the best title.
- •2. Read the text and match the headings to each paragraph. There is one extra heading.
- •3. Read the text again and decide whether the following statements are True (t)
- •4. Answer the questions.
- •The intercultural dimension' in language teaching
- •2. Answer the following questions.
- •3. Explain the difference between the following:
- •1. Work in groups of three or four and express your opinions on the following assumptions and beliefs about culture and intercultural learning.
Teaching and Learning Intercultural Awareness
It is possible to distinguish between approaching cultural difference 'through language' and the use of learning techniques whose objectives are more overtly 'behavioural'.
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In extending self-awareness to knowledge of other cultures or the modeling of behaviour in intercultural situations, the most common activities are culture quizzes and intercultural incidents. Culture quizzes are simply a series of questions on aspects of behaviour which reflect the cultural codes of a given national constituency. They can be either open-ended or multiple-choice.
As an exercise, culture quizzes are highly controversial since they can be seen to be reinforcing stereotypes and failing to differentiate between regional or situational variation. Treating them as quantitative tests is obviously more dangerous still but they are very effective as a basis for debate. Intercultural awareness is now perceived much more as a property of the individual rather than the outcome of knowledge of behavioural trends said to characterize specific nations. For this reason, the interest of quizzes lies in the fact that, while offering practical guidance, they provide an opportunity to scrutinize the relative truth of their answers.
The same can be said of 'intercultural incidents'. Authentic, culture-specific, intercultural incidents can be recorded by real-life participants, written up retrospectively and used for learning purposes. Once again, they serve as excellent catalysts for analysis and discussion. Their advantages as learning activities are their simplicity, and the fact that they can easily be renewed and updated.
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Another increasingly prominent feature of undergraduate and graduate courses which focus on 'interculture' is the ethnographic or cross-cultural project.
The strength of the ethnographic project is that it is culture-independent and can therefore be applied in an interdisciplinary framework, as well as to students intending to travel or work in a multiplicity of cultural environments. Students are guided in a choice of 'topic' and trained in basic social science research methodologies: questionnaire design, interview and focus group, the identification of behavioural codes, record-keeping, protocol analysis and so on. A less rigorous approximation to this approach is the cross-cultural case study in which pairs of students collect data from non-UK citizens on campus on 'attitudes towards the British way of life'. The outcome of such a project can be written up in the target language and formally presented. It has the virtue of engaging students in self-analysis, as a precursor to keeping a record of their experiences abroad, as well as improving their communication skills.
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The exploitation of electronic media of communication for the development of linguistic knowledge linked to intercultural awareness is becoming increasingly commonplace as an integral element in Modern Languages Higher Education programmes. Apart from the intrinsic value of promoting communication between individuals and groups in different countries and so enhancing intercultural awareness, it is, of course, possible to keep a record (electronic or otherwise) of discussions within closed networks and then to analyze them closely as part of a group learning experience. Such approaches are a self-evident means of student preparation for an academic experience at a partner institution, but can also give rise to highly creative joint learning tasks which focus on cultural issues.
(https://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/2303)