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Non verbal communication: Body language

Do you consider it important for an effective cross-cultural communications?

Avoid stereotypes while communicating

RUBY VURDIEN 

Watch this video. It's a typical example of stereotyping people.

How "diverse " is our school in terms of social - cultural differences?

Respect diversity at school.

How do we innteract with other people? What stereotypes we have about the ones we meet or see or know for the first time?

What do others think of you? How the brain perceives other people

 Dong Seon-Chang | TEDxStuttgart

How to integrate children of different cultural backgrounds in the classroom.

It's interesting to see how teachers try to integrate children of different cultural backgrounds in the classroom.

Global Digital Culture: Cultural Differences and the Internet

Global Digital Culture: Cultural Differences and the Internet

Language as a Window into Human Nature

Is language only a set of symbols? What make humans identity: linguistic or language knowledge? Can you spot the difference?

David Crystal

Watch this video by David Crystal, a famous linguist. 

He gives 5 reasons for studying linguistics. 

What is linguistics?

                

Noam Chomsky on Language Aquisition

 

It seems that it is language what makes humans. Amazing how language is acquired.

Travel around the world to broaden our minds!

Do you think our "intercultural education" gets improved by travelling around the World?
You have to read this "The man who ran out of countries! "

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3185929/He-ran-countries-Meet-youngest-person-visit-country-planet-turning-40-s-got-advice-same.html

Do you agree? The video has no words, you can put YOUR WORDS ...

The history of English in 10 minutes

Reflection on language with children...

Reflection on Language

EVA ROJO TORRES 

Task 1 Thinking about Language Diversity
Speaking activity as a brainstorming with a group of 24 students of 4th year of ESO using the PowerPoint slides provided. Their answers surprise me as they basically told me they were monolingual, taking into account that they have English and Frech/German as languages learnt at school.  One student shared that, at home, she spoke Portuguese with her mother. Another added that she did speak a mixture of Spanish and English at her village quite close to Portugal, but only in the summer. And one more is half Japanese.
As a whole they thought there were only hundreds of languages spoken in the world. And I did have to explain that there are languages in danger and others dying. They were surprised by the results.
Task 2 Thinking about Language Diversity
The same questions made me think about languages and how strong or fragile their life could be.  Spanish is in such good position, for one reason is the second non official language spoken in USA
Task 3 Language Diversity
From my point of view Language Diversity is to appreciate and value all languages spoken in the classroom.  My students who speak Portuguese and Japanese did not appreciate the fact that they are able to communicate in several languages.  I make them reflect on the value of their heritage language.
And this is what we, teachers, should do and I did not do.  I realized that when we did the activity and I shared the languages I speak with my students and make them talk about the languages they spoke and the level of fluency. In very simple terms like very well, good, so-so, a little they shared with each other and they added the value to the languages.  I am thinking about making these students teach us some simple words in one teaching session so they can become proud of their competence in these languages.
Task 4 Use Cultural Activities
So why not do it? Next week is the end of term and after exams they are quite tired so I am going to do a teaching session about Learning Languages.
Task 5 Languages Classification
My students and myself enjoyed the language tree, we searched for one for Japanese on the net. I have attached the picture.

Celebrating 400 Cervantes - Shakespeare

How are you celebrating this important event in your classes?

Activities to develop intercultural competence

Different activities should be tailored to help students understand their own cultural traits and those of their peers. Here are some examples.

1. What is culture and how do we approach it?
2. Stereotypes - racism and differences. Where do they come from?
3. Sameness / difference. Exercises in all possible matters.
4. Personal critical incidents and the emotive reaction.
5. Active listening. Positive cultural experiences.
6. Conflict resolution techniques.
7. Non-defensive communication and changing views.
8. Conflict resolution games.

The best way to practise these exercises is through role plays, questions/answers activities, narratives, reports, diaries, videos, pictures, digital materials, posters and conceptual maps.

Intercultural Language Activities by John Corbett (2010) is a recommended book for such activities.

Seeds of Confidence: Self-esteem Activities for EFL classroom by Jane Arnold (2009) is another good resource for teachers.

SHAKESVANTES en la prensa

SHAKESVANTES en la prensa

En el Norte de Castilla de hoy aparece esta noticia en la que se menciona la actividad desarrollada por el CFPI el pasado 6 de abril "4oo years playing (with) Shakespeare and Cervantes", coordinada por nuestra compañera Mariví Rocha.

Os dejo también el enlace al canal YouTube del CFPI donde podeís ver el vídeo del curso

Buen fin de semana a todos.
Margarita 

                                             Global digital culture

How do we interact with others? How does internet affect to     interactions with others?

A Spanish - Finnish telecollaboration

In my last project, which lasted for six weeks, the thirty-three participants (sixteen Spaniards and seventeen Finns) were expected to perform their tasks via the video conferencing Internet tool, Adobe Connect. The  tasks  assigned comprised introducing themselves, talking about their university education, hobbies, traditions, gastronomy and discussing local newspaper issues affecting them as well as a film from their respective countries.  The  aim was to   examine how students could communicate their views in groups of three, through real-time discussions about various issues related to their culture. Both the Spanish and Finnish participants shared the same levels of English (C1 and C2 on the Common European Framework of Reference).  Facebook (a closed group), which was the selected additional platform, provided the students not only with opportunities for further interactions but also for their peers to watch the videos  showing their task completion so that views could be exchanged on each other’s debate.

This new application seemed to be well appreciated by all the participants mainly because communication took  place in real-time due to its synchronous nature, which encouraged them to have a deeper insight into the issues debated online since peer feedback was instantaneous.

The task about selecting a newspaper article on a local issue was meaningful because the students had to negotiate towards an outcome . This led to the development of collaborative skills, as they attempted to reach an agreement. Last but not least, the interactions via videoconferencing  not only assisted students in practising their speaking skills, but also increased their knowledge of each other’s culture by exchanging personal views, asking each other questions to encourage feedback,  and understanding one another’s needs in order to establish a relationship.  Additionally,  it was much easier for them to clarify any ambiguity or misunderstanding straightaway since they were participating in real-time conversations and could respond spontaneously to their peers. All in all,  it was a rewarding experience for all the participants as they reported in their interview on completion of the project.

Un ejemplo de los "efectos" que el idioma tiene en las interacciones sociales, puede verse en la película "Spanglish", de 2004.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsm6aEYXkd8

  What is linguistics?

  What is your understanding of what linguistics is? 

 Do you  miss any elements ?

 Do you agree with the video content?

 Watch the video and leave your comments below

                 

Module 1 Reflection on Language

By EVA ROJO TORRES 12/03/2016 

Eva Rojo, a language teacher , shares with you this wonderful reflection on language diversity put into practice with her secondary students.

 Thinking about Language Diversity

Speaking activity as a brainstorming with a group of 24 students of 4th year of ESO using the PowerPoint slides provided. Their answers surprise me as they basically told me they were monolingual, taking into account that they have English and Frech/German as languages learnt at school.  One student shared that, at home, she spoke Portuguese with her mother. Another added that she did speak a mixture of Spanish and English at her village quite close to Portugal, but only in the summer. And one more is half Japanese.  

As a whole they thought there were only hundreds of languages spoken in the world. And I did have to explain that there are languages in danger and others dying. They were surprised by the results.

The same questions made me think about languages and how strong or fragile their life could be.  Spanish is in such good position, for one reason is the second non official language spoken in USA

 Language Diversity 

From my point of view Language Diversity is to appreciate and value all languages spoken in the classroom.  My students who speak Portuguese and Japanese did not appreciate the fact that they are able to communicate in several languages.  I make them reflect on the value of their heritage language.

And this is what we, teachers, should do and I did not do.  I realized that when we did the activity and I shared the languages I speak with my students and make them talk about the languages they spoke and the level of fluency. In very simple terms like very well, good, so-so, a little they shared with each other and they added the value to the languages.  I am thinking about making these students teach us some simple words in one teaching session so they can become proud of their competence in these languages.

 Use Cultural Activities

So why not do it? Next week is the end of term and after exams they are quite tired so I am going to do a teaching session about Learning Languages.

Languages Classification

My students and myself enjoyed the language tree, we searched for one for Japanese on the net. I have attached the picture.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS FREE OF PREJUDICES AND STEREOTYPES

Which techinques, methodologies,... do you use to promote communication free of prejudices in your class?

Causes of Prejudice

The term prejudice means "prejudgment." A person is prejudiced when he has formed an attitude toward a particular social group of people before having enough information on which to form a knowledgeable opinion. A negative prejudice is when the attitude is hostile toward members of a group. A positive prejudice is when the attitude is unduly favorable toward a group. Groups that are the targets of prejudice may be distinguished by any one of several characteristics such as religion, ethnicity, language, social class, gender, physical abilities, age, or sexual orientation. Frequently they are distinguished by specific inherited physical characteristics such as skin color.

Prejudice is such a basic part of a person's complex thought process that any one of many causes may be a factor, such as a person's appearance, unfamiliar social customs of others, or even the type of motor vehicle a person drives. As noted by Gordon Allport in his landmark book, The Nature of Prejudice, it is more likely that multiple causes of prejudice may be involved at the same time. In addition, prejudice exists not only at the personal individual level, but also at the collective societal level. All human societies have prejudice in some form and to some degree. In fact many societies have multiple prejudices, such as gender prejudice against female members, racial prejudice against people of color, and religious prejudice against Catholics or Jews.

As there are many causes of prejudice, there can be many forms of prejudicial expression, the most common of which is discrimination. Discrimination is the unfair treatment of people simply because they are different from the dominant group in society. An example would be a person, group, or company favoring one person over another on some arbitrary basis, such as gender or social class (groups of people sharing similar wealth and social standing), rather than on individual merit. Prejudice and discrimination cause inequality, another phenomenon common to all societies, especially when minorities, such as people of color, including Hispanic and black Americans, may be readily identified. Racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism (hostility toward Jews as a religious or ethnic group) are all forms of prejudice and discrimination.

The first prejudices in human history perhaps resulted from a fear of strangers or feelings of superiority over others. As societies became more complex, due to an increase in population and in the ways to group people, such as through social classes and multiple ethnic groups, prejudices also became more complex. Because prejudice frequently involves multiple factors both at the individual and group levels, determining the cause of prejudice in any single person is difficult. Most people do not willingly reveal their prejudices or the reasons for them, if they are even aware of their prejudices at all. Some people may have become prejudiced through some traumatic event they experienced in their lives. Others are simply conforming to the society in which they live, expressing the same prejudices as parents, popular political leaders, or employers. Regardless of the cause of a person's prejudice, stereotypes, oversimplified opinions of others (see box), are usually involved.

WORDS TO KNOW

attitude:A mental position regarding a particular fact or topic.

bias:A personal judgment, often unreasoned and prejudiced outlook.

discrimination:Unfair treatment based on arbitrary standards or criteria

emotion:A strong mental reaction to something, often causing sudden behavioral changes.

prejudice:An adverse opinion, often accompanied by irrational suspicion or hatred, formed towards a particular race, religion, or group.

socialization:The process by which a culture is learned, usually through the influences a youth experiences while growing up.

What prejudice means

To understand what causes prejudice, one must first have a grasp of the concept of prejudice. Prejudice has much the same meaning as bias. It is not just an emotion or feeling, a habit or personality trait. It is more an attitude that has been influenced by family, friends, church groups, and first-hand experiences. Humans are not born prejudiced, yet they often cultivate one form of it or another at a very early age. A prejudiced person assumes that one group, usually his own, is superior in some way to another group. A person often forms prejudices in his mind before ever meeting someone representing the group against which the person is prejudiced. In racial prejudice, the groups are defined solely by skin color. In social class prejudice, the groups are defined primarily by the part of town or area in which they live. As the person grows older, the prejudice often becomes a well-established part of his inner psychological self. It becomes an inflexible generalization about others that is difficult to change once established. These generalizations are normally hastily made. Any evidence that the assumptions about another group may be wrong, such as a female college student excelling in engineering studies, is simply considered an isolated exception.

Stereotyping

Prejudice obscures the complexity of the human experience because the person with prejudices simplifies the diversity of life found in a single society or throughout the world. A major misleading notion of prejudice is that members of a group considered a minority in some way are also majorities in other ways. They may actually share more similarities than differences with the dominant group. These simplified prejudgments of people lead to the formation of stereotypes. Stereotypes are largely taught through the socialization process by family, schools, and media such as books, television, and newspapers.

The origin of stereotyping often comes from stress. Stress causes people to view things simplistically in order to cope with the situation and seek attainable solutions. For example, in a border war between two nations, the people of one nation will view members of the other nation as strongly possessing negative traits in order to go into combat and try to kill them. 

Fuente http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-2831400012/causes-prejudice.html

How to succeed ...

 How to succeed ...

 Cultivate and work the intercultural competence with students can  be sometimes tough for teachers. 

 How to make our students aware of the social diversity? 

 How can we teach social skilss that help them deal with other social groups, with other speakers, with other cultural background?

We need, as teachers, some strategies that will lead us to succeded in our daily  teaching.

     

Non verbal communication: Body language

Non verbal communication: Body language

Do you consider it important for an effective cross-cultural communications?

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Have you seen it? Interesting

Intercultural competence

Language is a bridge between cultures as well as a tool for communication.  The fact that our globalised world facilitates exchange and mobility, learners tend to belong to  different ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds.  As a result, the question of language and plurilingual competence comes into play. The Council of Europe addresses the language question openly:

         "Language  learning  helps  learners  to  avoid  stereotyping  individuals, to develop                             curiosity and openness to others  and to discover other cultures. Language learning

           helps them to see that interaction with individuals having different social identities

           and cultures is an enriching experience” (2008, p. 16).

The objectives of teaching should include intercultural  and not only linguistic competences. In other words, learners should learn how to communicate successfully with people of different cultures and develop certain skills that will enable them to communicate with their peers in an effective way without offending anybody and being respectful of and tolerant towards each other. Indeed the challenge faced by teachers today is to ensure that these goals are met.

                       

References

Council of Europe (2008) White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue. ‘Living Together as Equals in Dignity’. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.(2007/C287/01 – 16 November 2007). Brussels; European Union.

Ruby Vurdien , apart from being an extraordinary professional, is the tutor of this online course.

"Challenging teachers for Plurilingual Integration through projects 2"

Ruby Vurdien is the director of White Rose Language School in Spain. She has been involved with EFL teaching for more than thirty years. She gained her EdD in the Development of Intercultural Competence via Email from the University of Sheffield. She researches into the application of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, wikis, online forums or social network tools to language teaching. She is also a Speaking Examiner for the Cambridge English Main Suite of exams. She has published a chapter and articles in refereed journals. 

Yesterday she was awarded with  FECEI TOP for her innovative approach to language teaching 

I Edición de los Premios FECEI TOP (Madrid, 13/02/2015)

Congratulations !!!

Curso 

Challenging teachers for plurilingual integration through projects 2

         Registration in the course open until 29th  Jan !!!!!


            More information  and registration   CFP Idiomas 

@CFPIdiomas
@asesoracfpi1
#plurilingualCFPI
#interculturalCFPI
#innovation
#integrationthroughlanguages

CHALLENGING TEACHERS FOR PLURINGUAL INTEGRATION THROUGH PROJECTS 2 (ONLINE)

This activity is a product of the European Project TC4PI Teacher Competences for Plurilingual Integration and is intended to provide a comprehensive training to develop teaching competences necessary for integration of the various languages in the classroom.

The course challenges teachers to gain knowledge on working definitions and methodological approaches to the linguistic diversity teaching in schools by means of class projects.

Objetives

1.- To reflect on language
2.- To raise awareness in linguistic knowledge versus language knowledge
3.- To reflect on interaction with people belonging to other social groups
4.- To learn about communication skills free of prejudices and stereotypes

Contents

1.- Reflection on language
2.- Awareness in linguistic knowledge versus language knowledge
3.- Interaction with people belonging to other social groups
4.- Communication skills free of prejudices and stereotypes

Competencies

Competencia didáctica
Competencia en innovación y mejora
Competencia lingüístico-comunicativa


Calendar

Online course in the second term 2016
The activity will be delivered from February 17th to april 22nd.

Further information ad registration:

Online Registration  CFP IDIOMAS from January 13th to January 29th 2016.

Wednesday 13th  January 2016  will be open registration to this course 

CHALLENGING TEACHERS FOR PLURINGUAL INTEGRATION THROUGH PROJECTS 2 (ONLINE)

Further information and registration using CFPI web site

http://cfpidiomas.centros.educa.jcyl.es/sitio/index.cgi?wid_seccion=13&wid_item=79