May 2006 |

March-December 2005 |

October 2005 |

May 2005 |

October 2004 |

June 2004 |

January 2004 |

Action Plan |

ECML
Calendar |

May 2006: ICCinTE team meeting

As a result of the needs and wishes expressed by the participants at our central workshop in October 2004, twelve national training events (NTEs) took place within the framework of the ICCinTE project in twelve different European countries between March and December 2005. The main aims of the training events were the following:

• To raise awareness of the importance of incorporating intercultural communication training into language teaching;
• To assist secondary school teachers and/or language teacher trainers in integrating ICC in their own teaching by providing them with theoretical and practical ideas and materials, primarily from our intercultural communication textbook entitled Mirrors and Windows;
• To encourage intercultural learning at all stages of language learning;
• To explore various possibilities for adapting and supplementing currently used coursebooks to better cater for ICC training;
• To encourage the participants to design their own ICC materials suitable for their classes;
• To disseminate the results of our own and other similar ECML projects;
• To make the ECML and its activities and resources better known.

The events were organized by national authorities in cooperation with the ECML. Martina Huber-Kriegler, our team member from Austria, moderated the training events in Nottoden, Kaunas, Ljubljana, Graz and Stuttgart (the latter co-facilitated by Christiane Peck, our team member from Germany). Gabriela Matei, our traveling expert from Romania moderated the workshops in Bratislava/Zilina, Sulejówek and Malmo. Ildikó Lázár, the project coordinator and traveling expert from Hungary, facilitated the events in Prague, Budapest, Riga and Zagreb. For further details on these events, please refer to the NTE reports under materials.

October 2005 - ICCinTE network meeting

The network meeting of the ICCinTE project was held in Graz on October 14-15th 2005. Ten participants representing three different networks got together with the project team to evaluate work in progress and plan the final publication. The participants of the meeting agreed on the basic outline of the upcoming publication and discussed and evaluated the materials that have already been written. The publication will consist of a 16-20 page booklet and a CD ROM entitled 'An Intercultural Communication Training and Assessment Guide to supplement Mirrors and Windows.' It will consist of theoretical and practical guidelines and materials for professionals intending to organize and implement ICC workshops and courses as well as a collection of assessment tasks to help evaluate trainees' intercultural competence.

May 2005: ICCinTE team meeting

The ICCinTE team held a productive team meeting in Budapest on May 6-8th. We discussed the progress made in each of our networks, we discussed and evaluated the first National Training Events (NTEs) held in Prague and Budapest, clarified content and logistics questions for the following ten NTEs, evaluated the progress made in the materials writing networks, and came up with a new approach to organising the research and development to be carried out by the assessment network. We shall soon send out invitations to many actively involved participants to attend our network meeting in Graz in October.

October 12-16th 2004: ICCinTE workshop

The ICCinTE team held an intensive five-day workshop on incorporating intercultural communication in teacher education on October 12-16 th. The workshop included a number of presentations on the results of project 1.2.3 of the first medium-term program of activities of the ECML (including qualitative and quantitative studies on the role of culture in language teaching and Mirrors and windows; an intercultural communication textbook) as well as a session on defining key concepts, the goals and types of ICC courses and the joys and difficulties of assessing intercultural competence. Most sessions on the last three days of the workshop were group sessions according to the participants’ areas of expertise and their interests.

There were 28 cooperative and enthusiastic participants from all over Europe, who set up three networks to continue the training, materials writing/adaptation and ICC assessment initiated by the team. Seventeen participants opted for holding national training events on ICC in their home countries, 2 volunteered to assist in the adaptation of Mirrors and windows to French, 3 wish to develop further teaching materials and 9 participants committed themselves to creating a collection of appropriate assessment tasks to supplement the above textbook. Several participants wish to be involved in the work of several networks. Hopefully the electronic exchange of ideas and sharing of results will help cross-fertilize the work to be carried out by all three networks until some of us can meet again at national training events or the next network meeting in October 2005.

We would like to thank all our participants for their professional contributions, patience and sense of humor and we are also grateful to the ECML for always helping us sort things out.

The ICCinTE team

Martina Huber-Kriegler (Austria)
Denise Lussier (Canada)
Gabriela Matei (Romania)
Christiane Peck (Germany)
Ildikó Lázár (coordinator – Hungary)

June 25-26th 2004: ICCinTE team meeting

The team had a successful meeting to prepare the central workshop on Incorporating Intercultural Communication in Teacher Education to be held at the ECML in Graz on October 12-16th 2004. At the workshop participants will have the chance to choose from three threads to follow up:

1. designing national training events on ICC in English or in French to be held at their own institutions
2. adapting materials (Mirrors and windows, an intercultural communication textbook) to French and perhaps writing other ICC materials
3. creating an assessment booklet to supplement Mirrors and windows based on a conceptual framework for assessing intercultural competence.

The team discussed the general aims and outline of the workshop, set the tasks and objectives for the follow-up work in networks and enjoyed the hospitality of the locals during this very pleasant and productive team building and workshop planning event.

January 2004: team meeting report

The first meeting of the ICC in TE (Intercultural Communication Training in Teacher Education) team was held on January 16-17th.

We discussed the aims and tasks ahead and agreed on the programme of the central workshop to be held in October. Up to then the team will be working on collecting materials for the French version of the intercultural communication texbook "Mirrors and windows" as well as making an inventory of existing ICC assessment tasks. It was a productive first meeting spent in a very good atmosphere - without any intercultural misunderstandings and with lots of kind assistance from the ECML staff.

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Project team: Martina Huber-Kriegler, Federal Pedagogical Academy, Austria; Denise Lussier, McGill University, Canada; Christiane Peck, Staatliches Seminar für Didaktik und Lehrerbildung Gymnasien, Germany; Gabriela S. Matei, EduPlus Consulting, Romania; Ildikó Lázár, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary (coordinator).