Interaction and Cultural Integration (Cross-Cultural Engagement Activity)

This activity is used in a Cross Cultural Engagement course about two months after students have arrived at their education abroad location. Students are asked to write up their reflections in order to focus their observations. In this case students are asked to submit their writing to an instructor at the home campus, but this activity could easily be submitted to an instructor or director who is on-site with students.

CURRICULUM TOOLBOX HOME ​

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Instructions to students:
Reading: “Strategies for Intercultural Communication” in Maximizing Study Abroad, 2nd edition, pp. 125-142.

Choose A, B, or C and write one page about either activity; submit in the course module.
A: In Sakai, access the Pdf “Circle of Relations, Culture Matters” – you complete the circle of culture for yourself and then ask as a host national to complete it (directions are on the Pdf).

B: Watch TV with a local and ask them to explain some of the culture and language to you. Don’t flip through multiple channels –stick to one or two programs and examine them.  Take notes while you do this; try to observe carefully and make note of details and of what your host tells you.  In your write-up, describe your viewing experience and anything you learned from it.

C: Visit a well-known local landmark.  First, write down what the landmark means to you and what you know about it.  Next, find one or more locals and ask them what it means to them.  How does your understanding/interpretation of the landmark compare with the locals’? What new things about the landmark and the local culture did you learn from this?
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Faculty

• Andrew SmithAffiliation: Wake Forest University
  
• Steven DukeAffiliation: University of Nebraska