KA1 COURSES / JOB SHADOWING

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE

COURSE OVERVIEW

The process of world-wide globalisation and Europe becoming such a multicultural society and a melting pot represent not only new issues and challenges but also requirements on professional qualities of teachers and their interpersonal skills. Thus cross-cultural communication competence is a must of every modern teacher. The course provides a holistic approach and our main goal is not only to help teachers understand the reasons for differences in behaviour of their students, preferences in their communication styles but also to provide them with hands-on tools and practical tips for using all different methods to develop cross-cultural communication competence.

 CONTENT

The content of the course is divided into two basic parts – theoretical and practical; however, we try to leverage both of them every working day and find balance between theory and practice. The definition of culture, the process of acquiring culture, cultural differences in values, attitudes, motivation and ways of behaving will be discussed at different stages of the course. We will also talk about the theories of cultural dimensions, the definition of intercultural communication, the process of communication as such and the blocks of effective communication arising from cultural differences will also be a point of the discussion. While in the second, practical part (in which teachers will be actively involved and will try the methods and activities themselves), different kinds of methods will be applied to show teachers various possibilities for implementing the kinds of methods which encourage active social learning, experience learning and development of critical and creative thinking. Although the methods may be adjusted according to teachers’ needs, they all are based on principles not only to teach facts (knowledge) but also develop and improve abilities, skills and attitudes.