5.1 Central workshop report
Background and rationale Intercultural communication has often been in the focus of attention in the field of language pedagogy in the last two decades. However, intercultural communication training is still not systematically incorporated in the curriculum of most teacher training programs in Europe. Since it is obviously of great importance to increase intercultural understanding in a multilingual and multicultural world, training teacher educators to incorporate intercultural competence in language teacher education would have a beneficial multiplying effect. The ICCinTE project builds on previous research and development carried out within the framework of project 1.2.3 of the first medium-term program of the ECML. In fact, it is a continuation of that work in that the subsequent training workshops as well as the planned research and development will be based on the research articles* and the intercultural communication textbook** produced by the team and the participants of the previous project. *Lázár I. (Ed.) (2003)
Incorporating Intercultural Communicative Description of the workshop Aims and objectives The central workshop on incorporating intercultural communication in teacher education was held at the ECML in Graz on October 12-16th 2004. The main aim of the workshop was to set off a cascading process for a more systematic integration of intercultural communicative competence in teacher education. The sessions were designed so that our presentations informed participating teacher educators about the theoretical background of intercultural communicative competence and also gave practical interactive training in developing ICC. In addition, participants were provided with guidelines to conduct research in the fields of materials development and the assessment of intercultural competence. Specific objectives included:
The central 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 information on qualitative and quantitative studies on the current role of culture in language teaching as well as an introduction to Mirrors and windows / an intercultural communication textbook. In addition, there was a session on defining key concepts in order to reach a common understanding of the terminology used in the project.. Furthermore, the team held presentations on the possible goals and types of ICC courses, the potentials of materials development and the advantages and difficulties of assessing intercultural competence. Participants There were 28 cooperative professionals from 28 European countries participating at the workshop. Nine participants held short presentations on their areas of expertise in ICC:
After the first two workshop days of theoretical input, the participants formed three networks in order to continue the training, materials writing/adaptation and ICC assessment initiated by the facilitating team. Most sessions on the last three days of the workshop were group sessions according to the participants' areas of expertise and their interests: Networks
Preview of the next stages of the project 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. Some of the 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 we 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 staff and the interpreters for their continuous assistance. The ICCinTE team: Martina Huber-Kriegler (Austria), Denise Lussier (Canada),
Gabriela S. Matei (Romania), Christiane Peck (Germany), Ildikó
Lázár (coordinator / Hungary) Network 1 Designing and holding National Training Events (ICC workshops) in their home countries before the end of 2005 Tentative plans: A (series of) short session(s) A (series of) one-day workshop(s) 2-day workshops Coordination and co-facilitation: Attachment to the central workshop report 2 Network 2a / Adapting Mirrors and windows to French Proofreading, adapting and editing the French version of Mirrors and windows, an intercultural communication textbook. Participants: Possible place and date for an editing meeting: Graz, October 14-15th 2005 Network 2b / Additional ICC materials to Mirrors and windows Target audience: 1. Teachers (P /S /T?) Content
Format Brochure + CD ROM Participants: Coordinator: Possible place and date for an editing meeting: Graz, October 14-15th 2005 Attachment to the central workshop report 3 Network 3 Surveying and classifying ICC assessment tasks and developing an assessment booklet/website to supplement Mirrors and windows for users of the textbook Participants: Coordinator: Questionnaire for surveying ways of assessing ICC in each country to be filled in and sent to Denise Lussier by January 31st 2005. Possible place and date for a network meeting: Graz, October 14-15th 2005 |