Intercultural training

"This study analyses the experiences of four teenage girls from the north east of England who volunteered to participate in a variety of community drama activities as part of an international drama in education congress in Belém, Brazil, in 2010.  The minutiae of their daily routines, living and working on an island in the Amazon delta, was captured through diary-writing, photographs and participant observation and later scrutinised for evidence of intercultural learning along with post-project interviews and group reflection activities.  The study takes a broad view of what might constitute ‘drama’ in this instance, aligning itself with the global scope of the congress rather than relying on a fixed idea of cultural specificity.  The congress itself drew not only on accepted Western definitions of drama in education but also included indigenous models and other world views.  The study therefore presents several layers of interculturality at play in a simultaneous fashion; the Brazilian setting with its diverse population; the global gathering with its international delegates and wide-ranging programme of events; the experiences of the congress participants (including the 4 British teenagers and the author).

The researcher takes a non-paternalistic view in respect of education and international development, focusing mostly on the benefits of intercultural activity for the visiting Western volunteers rather than those that might be derived by the host community.  Finally a question is asked about the praxis of drama in development issues.
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Vietnam's open-door policy, its socialist-oriented market economy, recent growth in cross-border education and skills mobility, regionalisation and globalisation have created an increasing demand for Vietnamese graduates to develop not only their English language but also their intercultural competence. This paper discusses the issue of student intercultural learning and development in the Vietnamese English as a foreign language (EFL) class. Especially, it addresses the use of film as an innovative approach to engage Vietnamese students in intercultural learning and development in the EFL classroom. The study reported in this paper draws on rich sources of data which include in-depth interviews with students, student reflective journals and video-recorded class observations at a university in central Vietnam. Overall, five key themes relating to student intercultural learning through film have been identified in this study. These include enhancing knowledge about cultural differences, engaging in cross-cultural comparison, breaking cultural stereotypes, immersing students in authentic learning and living in the world of ‘other’ culture and the integrated mode of intercultural language learning. The study is a significant contribution to scholarly research on the use of media objects to enhance student intercultural learning in language classrooms in developing countries.

"ABSTRACT
In our globalized World, the inter–cultural relations have increased and have also become more intricate. This globalization is an essential characteristic in today’s multiculturalism as the coexistence of different cultures in the same society and in the structure of these societies, due to migration or secularization, among other reasons.
In this context, the two main errors (relativism and legal positivism) that influence the correct interpretation of multiculturalism are explained here. Secondly, here is also explained the main characteristics of Culture (its social and historical role, and its relative –and not relativistic– nature; and also the relation between Culture and Moral). Thus, we may better understand the meaning of otherness or alterity (from alter or the other, in Latin) or the acknowledgement of the other, an essential element in the construction of an intercultural understanding that, in the future, may help make the coexistence of individuals and communities easier.

This paper was presented at the I Conference in History at the Instituto de Humanidades CEU Ángel Ayala. This Conference took place in the University CEU San Pablo between the 26 and the 27 January 2005.

KEYWORDS
Alliance of Civilizations
Clash of Civilizations
Cultural Relativism
Cultural Theory
Intercultural Competence
Intercultural Relations
Multiculturalism
Otherness

RESUMEN
En el mundo globalizado actual, las relaciones interculturales se han multiplicado y vuelto cada vez más complejas. Especialmente en la medida en que el multiculturalismo, entendido como la coexistencia de distintas culturas en una misma sociedad, constituye un rasgo estructural del presente debido a fenómenos como la inmigración, la secularización y otros.
En ese contexto, se exponen aquí en primer lugar los dos errores más difundidos en relación con el contacto intercultural (el relativismo y el positivismo jurídico). Tras ello se presentan los rasgos fundamentales de la cultura (su carácter social e histórico, su carácter relativo –que no relativista– y la relación entre cultura y moral), de manera que podamos entender mejor el significado de la alteridad (el reconocimiento del “otro”), elemento clave para poder construir una esquema de competencia intercultural que facilite la convivencia entre individuos y pueblos

Este texto se corresponde con la comunicación del mismo título presentada en las I Jornadas de Historia del Instituto CEU de Humanidades Ángel Ayala, celebradas en la Universidad CEU San Pablo los días 26 y 27 de enero de 2005.

PALABRAS CLAVE
Alianza de civilizaciones
Alteridad
Choque de civilizaciones
Competencia intercultural
Multiculturalismo
Otredad
Relación intercultural
Relativismo cultural
Teoría de la cultura"