At the end of the course, the student should be able to:
– Recognise the different elements (visible and invisible) that make up culture
– Identify the obstacles to intercultural communication
– Understand the role culture plays in general and professional contexts
– Suggest ways to begin respecting and reconciling cultural differences
– Apply different models to correctly analyse and interpret different situations to work more effectively in intercultural contexts
– Interact more sensitively within multicultural groups
– Be able to successfully integrate a new group from an initial group
– Have greater awareness about topics such as diversity, inclusionn unconscious bias and non-discrimination
– Demonstrate an intercultural mindset
– Collaborate successfully within an intercultural team
Help students to recognize their own culture to be able to recognize and respect the culture of others and reconcile these differences when they have to work across cultures. The approach is culture-general rather than culture-specific, students will start to build up an intercultural toolbox that they will be able to use wherever and with whoever they have to work with and interact.
– Cultural diversity icebreaker
– David Kolb’s learning style inventory
– Individual development plan in intercultural communication
– Definitions, elements and metaphors of culture. Objective and subjective culture.
-The obstacles to intercultural communication: Language differences, assumption of similarity, tendency to evaluate, stereotypes, prejudice and unconscious bias, non-verbal communication and high anxiety (cultural stress)
-E.T. Hall’s model of non-verbal communication
-Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck: Cultural value orientations model
-Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions model
-Fons Trompenaar’s cultural dimensions model and the 4Rs framework of cultural differences
-Cultural values
-Culture shock and intensity factors
