Inter-cultural communication styles

Brief description of session and activities

Activities will involve critical discussion of models of intercultural communication, primarily drawn from Social Psychology and branches of Linguistics, in relation to participants’ own experiences, with reflection on conflicting notions of culture. This will lead to an exploration of what inter-cultural communicative competence may involve.

The workshop will consider ways of allowing International students’ difference in communicative styles from home students to be seen, not as a deficit, but as a capital in itself to contribute to the overall diversity of cultural experience necessary to becoming a competent worker in a globalised environment.

How will students be involved in the session?

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What will participants take away from the session?

Participants will have increased awareness of:

1. The nature of cultural differences and their impact on communication styles and interpretations of behaviour.
2. Some of the key theories and disciplines (in broad outline, but with references supplied for further follow-up) that have attempted to explain these, and some of their strengths and weaknesses.
3. The placing of their personal experiences of intercultural communication in a broader context , and ways to contextualize and reflect on such experience.
4. What intercultural communicative competence entails, and how it can be developed.
5. Ways of turning the potential deficit of student cultural difference into a capital for themselves and others.