podcast – Page 28 – absolutely intercultural!

absolutely intercultural 39 +++ international family life +++ bi-lingualism and bi-culturalism +++

Is it always an advantage to grow up with more than one language? And what happens if a child does not speak the language of one of its parents? To answer these, and many other questions, we have interviewed four people from very different backgrounds, who all have in common that they grew up either bi-culturally, bi-lingually or both.

absolutely bi-lingual
First you’ll hear about a woman whose parents had grown up speaking English and German, who of course herself grew up with these two languages and now raises her little daughter the same way.
Then Peter from England talks about what it was like to grow up with an Austrian mother and an English father in England. And how that changed the whole look and feel of their house in England.

absolutely mixed
Right after that we go south to Italy, where Manuel, whose father is Italian, tells us why he had to take a beginners’ course in the Italian language a few years ago, and what, as a young boy, got on his nerves when he was visiting his family in Italy.
And for the last part of the show we go even further south to Brazil. Stefanie also doesn’t really talk the language of her mother’s family, but she does love to visit them in Brazil.
The next show will be coming to you on the 21st of September from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited and co-hosted by: Karsten Kneese

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 38 +++ Iceland +++ 3D College +++ Seattle +++ Chernobyl +++ Stephen Pinker +++

From Iceland to the 3D College to Chernobyl to Seattle.

In this show we are going to hear from a number of people who have found themselves in a different culture for a short period but they haven’t just been on holiday.

absolutely personal
Our first guest is Anne Würtz Petersen, a Danish scientist who found herself on a scientific expedition in Iceland examining the threatened Greenland White-fronted Goose in a group consisting mainly of British colleagues. How did she cope with the technical language and the speed of native speaker language? Tony Fox, one of her colleagues on that trip, tried to find out.

absolutely animated
3D college in Denmark trains young people from the age of about 16 or 17 in this fast growing industry and as part of their studies these students all make several study trips one of which is to Seattle in the USA where they can learn from some of the best in the world such as animators from Disney. Do we see so much American TV and cinema that we all have the feeling that we already know the place before we even set foot there? I talked to Mads and Tobias about the trip and about some of the pictures in an unofficial blog of their travels which has lots of pictures.

absolutely speechless
At least Mads and Tobias were able to communicate with their host families as they had English as a common language. But what if you went away for a month to stay in somebody’s house where there was no common language at all? Could that work? That was the situation faced by some old friends of mine, Nicky Penford and her son Adam in Aberdeen Scotland when they agreed to host two boys from Belarus for a month, earlier this summer. Belarus was badly affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 and the whole country is still polluted by radiation which affects people’s health. The Chernobyl Children Lifeline charity offers Belarusian children a month’s homestay in countries around the world since it turns out that a month spent in a place with clean air and food can add as much as two years to a Belarusian’s life expectancy. But the Belarusians speak Russian and my friends and their son speak only English. So how did it go? BabelFish was a useful tool for giving the boys an idea of each day’s programme.

absolutely theoretical
I was looking for information about the theories of Stephen Pinker when I came across a couple of really interesting tests which you can take to help his research. The tests are not explicitly about intercultural communication but are trying to find out how people express themselves in difficult or awkward situations. So if you are quite good at English go to http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/ and click on ‘participate in a study’ which will take you to the first test and then suggest you participate in a second study run by one of his colleagues. I am not allowed to say more about the content otherwise I’ll spoil the research. But I will say that both tests raise all sorts of interesting intercultural situations and it is worth thinking about how people from other cultures might react to the same dilemmas.

The next show will be coming out on the 7th of September and will be coming to you from Germany.

The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 37 +++ Leaving it all behind +++ Sabbatical +++ Opera in Thailand +++

Leaving it all behind – Sabbatical year – Opera in Thailand

Leave it all behind We reserve a special welcome to all our new listeners in Africa, South America and Asia. As you can see on our cluster map we are getting more and more hits from these parts of the world, and it’s great to have you with us on our little intercultural journey.

Well, it’s August, and at least in the northern hemisphere the holiday season is in full swing. “Holidays” – even when I only see the written word in an email message, it quickly seems to create pleasant pictures in my mind. I immediately think about beaches, mountains, islands and maybe you, too, you think about your favourite places? And, when you are on a holiday, don’t you sometimes develop fantasies about leaving you normal life behind and not going back? About getting away from it all for good? Or at least for a little longer than just a holiday? Well, in this episode we have interviewed three people who have done exactly that – but all in their different ways.

absolutely itchy feet
We will start with Jens Alderath, one of our very internationally mobile students, who first went to Australia for 8 month for his practical semester 2 years ago, then went to South Africa twice since he returned, after that spent some weeks in Austria and Ireland and is as we are speaking planning now to go back to South Africa after he will have finished his studies. Although he is only 23 years old, Jens seems to have become a “world citizen”, but what do his family and friends think about the constant series of farewells?

absolutely musical
Alessandro from Italy tells us what brought him to the opera in Thailand three years ago and why his life has changed from heavy metal to classical music.

absolutely free
But what would happen if Alessandros job became so stressful and tiring that he wanted to take a longer break? Could he take a whole year off? Well, this is exactly what Ralf Klatt did. Ralf is a teacher, and he took a so-called “sabbatical year” to get away from his daily routine in school. He toured the USA for three month, with only one companion – his motorcycle.

absolutely lifelong
Are you looking for realistic ways to improve your English and have some fun at the same time? Have you tried watching films in the original versions? Well, then this will strike a chord with you. Lisa Martin, one of our students here at the RheinAhrCampus, has come up with some great ideas.
The next show will be coming to you on the 24th of August from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited and co-hosted by: Karsten Kneese

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 36 +++ Bringing up baby +++ the Kenyan, German, Australian, Danish or Scottish way +++

This show has been recorded outdoors because everything seems to happen outdoors at this time of year in Denmark including cooking programmes on the TV as well as weather forecasts.

absolutely yours
Don’t forget to add yourself to our Frappr map on the blog. It may be interesting for us to talk to Vox Appeal from Rennes in France for example, who says he’s interested in podcasting in or about minority languages.

This show will be about children because child-rearing norms are deeply culturally bound and serious problems can occur when parents from one culture rear their children in a different culture.

absolutely babyish
We hear from Collette Döppner who in an earlier show told us about her pregnancy in Germany as a Kenyan woman. Now that her child has been born, things have got no easier as Collette attempts to carry out the Kenyan tradition of sleeping with her baby. Her grandmother provides wise advice and support when the new family visit her in Kenya.

absolutely confidential
Collette has been able to work out what she wants in discussion with her husband but what happens when you are mother to the new Prince of Denmark, you come from Australia and Danish norms dictate that young children spend much of their time in kindergarten? The press has a field day for certain especially the Australian magazine Woman’s Day, but are Australian and Danish norms so far apart or is this just tabloid journalism? I talked to Michael Coghlan and Alison Waye in Adelaide to try and make some sense of this scandal.

absolutely childish
Finally we talk about slightly older children of about 4 or 5 years old. Does it make a difference whether what they are attending is called a school or a kindergarten? This topic arose when I was talking to Ewan McIntosh about something else at the Reboot conference in May and I suddenly began to wonder if we weren’t talking at cross purposes. In the process you will hear what is surely the shortest curriculum in the world, the Scottish school curriculum which is summed up in eight words as ‘Successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors’. A succinct and positive note on which to end.

The next show will be coming to you from Germany on August 10th.

The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 35 +++ Second Life & the “Edunation” +++ Podcasting & Education +++

Second Life and the Edunation, Podcasting and Education

The Edunation In this episode we talk about how new web2.0 technologies and tools such as the three dimensional virtual world Second Life and Podcasting are changing the way we learn, the way we teach and how we shape and influence the process – so generally speaking – how web2.0 is changing the culture of education.

absolutely virtual (part 1)
We have interviewed Nicky Hockly from the Consultants-E in Barcelona about their ventures into this new world, and what the hype about Second Life is all about. The interview is split up into two parts, and you really shouldn’t miss the second one at the end of this show where Nicky talks about “Edunation” and what you can learn there.

absolutely practical
And before we continue our second life interview with Nicky Hockly you will hear Sebastian Dorok, an Apple Distinguished Educator and teacher of English and music at a highschool in Germany. Sebastian talks about his own experiences as a teacher and gives a hands-on example from his podcasting project with young students.

absolutely virtual (part 2)
Nicky tells us more about “Edunation”, what is happening on the virtual island and how Second Life can be used for teaching. And she reveals whether she herself is a Second Life person or not…so stay tuned!

The next show will be coming to you on the 27th of July from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited and co-hosted by: Karsten Kneese

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 34 +++ reboot +++ Ewan McIntosh +++ Wikimedia +++ WeBreakStuff +++

reboot, Ewan McIntosh, Wikimedia and WeBreakStuff

Reboot logo In this show we talk to some of the people who attended the Reboot 09 conference in Copenhagen in late May. Reboot traditionally focuses on the Internet and online applications and tends to attract businesses and programmers but it is far from as technical as it sounds. The theme of the conference was ‘Human?’ and touched on issues such as achieving the ideal work/life balance, integrating children into a career, what happens to your blog when you die and how can cyber organisations which belong to no physical location motivate people all over the world to fund their activities?

Absolutely Educational: ‘Universities should be a place where you get it wrong.’ As part of his French studies at university, Ewan McIntosh spent some time teaching English in a French university. How did his students, used to the traditional academic French approach, react when he cleared away the desks and asked them to rank their own performance?

Absolutely generous: ‘Cheques are still free in France.’ Delphine Ménard, a French woman living in Germany works for the Wikimedia Foundation whose projects include Wikipedia. She talks about how such an international organisation can reach out to different cultures to secure the funding they need to continue their work.

Absolutely ideal: ‘It’s not the most practical thing but it’s not hard at all!’ Fred Oliveira from Portugal has decided what his priorities in life are and explains how he has managed to set up a cutting edge company without needing to remain in the Bay area of California.

Absolutely expert: Our very own PodKarsten, Karsten Kneese was invited to speak on an expert panel at the Podcast Day in Cologne on June 20th. So make sure you tune into the next show on July 13 to find out much more about it.

The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 33 +++ Protestant Church Congress 2007 +++ Taizé +++ Religion & Society +++

Live from the Protestant Church Congress 2007 in Cologne – Taizé Experiences – Religion and Society

To do a show about religion was suggested by Irene Hansen who left a comment on our blog some weeks ago, where she also mentioned the Taizé Community. Taizé is a community in France but its members come from various different parts of the world – so the lifestyle in the community is at the same time religious and remarkably intercultural.

absolutely abroad
Our good friend Fernando moved from Spain to the USA a few months ago, and he tells us about his observations regarding religion in general and especially Catholicism in the United States. Fernando, welcome back to ‘absolutely intercultural!’

Father Roger absolutely personal
We got in touch with Irene and arranged to meet her at the five day protestant church congress in Cologne, Germany, which came to an end last Sunday the 10th of June with a service attended by over 100,000 participants from all over the world. Supported by Anne Knopf and Gereon Reuter, two of our students here at RheinAhrCampus, she interviewed quite a number of people about their wishes and dreams for the world, about their experiences at the church congress and about their visits to the Taize community in France.

absolutely recommendable
But of course we haven’t been the only podcasters at the protestant church congress. The Deutsche Welle Radio for example has created a fantastic feature about the event that will provide you with even more eyewitness reports and thoughts about faith and its position in the world. So we recommend to you to go to the Deutsche Welle website and listen to their correspondents reports.

absolutely lifelong
Watch out for international conventions, exhibitions, fairs or anything that brings people from other countries to your city. At these events is usually very easy to get in contact with interesting people and learn more about their culture and of course their language.
absolutely original
Listent to a street preacher at Victoria Station in London who was using a megaphone to draw attention to the importance of God and hear a group of believers of the Hare Krishna movement who were out in the street to reach out to passers-by and attract them to their religious beliefs by singing.
Announcement

Karsten Kneese will participate in a panel about “The future of educasts” at 4 pm on June 20th for the Podcastday 2007. The panel will be recorded and can be downloaded after the event.

The next show will be coming to you on the 29th of June from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited and co-hosted by: Karsten Kneese

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 32 +++ pregnancy +++ contact hypothesis +++ Spanish Latinos +++

Pregnancy, contact hypothesis and spanish latinos

Pregnancy Absolutely Yours: Thanks to Anastasia Pryanikova for her kind comments about our show. Check out Anastasia’s blog if you need wise words about teaching in general and teaching law in particular.

Absolutely childish: ‘I felt that I didn’t have any private space anymore.’ Listen to how it felt for Kenyan, Collette Wanjugu Döppner, living in Germany to be pregnant the German way!

Absolutely theoretical: Elaine Hoter from Talpiot College in Tel Aviv explains the contact hypothesis and how it is used in a tripartite collaborative project bringing the three main disparate cultural communities in Israel in a session during the CONNECT Webheads in Action convergence conference. You can listen to the rest of Elaines’s session, my session about using podcasts in language teaching and many more of the sessions on the conference archive page.

Absolutely personal: Carla Arena from Brazil explains how she and her husband are surrounded by Latino stereotypes as they spend two years in Florida.

Absolutely essential: Don’t forget that Karsten Kneese will be partcipating in a panel discussion about educasting on June 20th at 5pm (15:00GMT) as part of the PodcastDay2007 in Cologne.

The next show will be coming from Germany on June 15th.

The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 31 +++ International Week @ RheinAhrCampus +++ Study abroad +++ Where is Lithuania heading? +++

International Week at RheinAhrCampus – Study abroad – Where is Lithuania heading?

For one week each year we celebrate the international and intercultural aspects of the University of Applied Science Koblenz, this year again with support from the DAAD initiative Go Out!. Every year we invite guests from our partner universities and experts who give presentations for our students about studying or working abroad. However, this time, there were not only students from our own university, but also Agnes Dus from Corvinus University in Budapest in Hungary, and Johan Olsson from Umea University in Sweden. Agnes and Johan were our roving reporters for this week, and they ran from one location to another, always looking for good opportunities to interview people and find out about their international and intercultural experiences.

absolutely studentlike

For our first column they have interviewed three students about their intercultural experiences and plans. Isabelle for example talks about different cultural ways how people do business, and Daniel tells us how his stay in Singapore has changed his life and why you shouldn’t trust too much what you can learn from books about intercultural behaviour.

absolutely experienced
For the second column Johan spoke to Professor Patrick McMahon from the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education. He turned around the perspective and asked him, what he as a lecturer can learn from international students and what has changed most in the British student culture since he was a student himself.

absolutely lithuanian
Agnes met Ruta Jankauskiene from the University of Kaunas. Ruta will give us an insight on the Lithuanian perspective on international exchanges and where her country is heading.
absolutely lifelong
And last but not least we are proud to present a new column “absolutely lifelong” where we will share good ideas to organise your own life long learning. Today’s contribution has been produced by Anne Knopf and Gereon Reuter, two of our students at RheinAhrCampus. They will give you some good advice on how you can improve your English in a realistic way and have a lot of fun at the same time.
Here are the links:

Announcements
Anne Fox will give a talk/workshop on “Using Podcasts in the EFL classroom” at 20:00 GMT on May 19th. Please go to wiaoc.org to find out more about this event.

Karsten Kneese will participate in a panel about “The future of educasts” at 5 pm on June 20th for the Podcastday 2007.

The next show will be coming to you on the 1st of June from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited and co-hosted by: Karsten Kneese

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo

absolutely intercultural 30 +++ working in Japan +++ Haiti and the Dominican Republic +++ Hofstede in action +++

Working in Japan – Haiti and the Dominican Republic – Hofstede in action

Rush hour in Japan Absolutely National
Yogesh Bang, an Indian software engineer, has worked on assignment in Japan several times. His advice to anybody thinking of working in Japan is to be prepared to lose out on sleep. He also noticed the effect of concensus decision-making, hierarchy and the status of women employees during his time there.

Absolutely Educational I
We have another report from Chris Saenger of the Intercultural Management Institute of Washington on their annual conference last March called ‘Does Culture Still Matter?’ This time he talks about their second keynote speaker Laurence Harrison who is not afraid to make controversial propositions as to why for example Haiti and the Dominican Republic perform so differently economically even though they share the same island.

Absolutely Educational II
Speaking from Iceland, David Stroud, a senior British civil servant, talks about why the Hofstede model is so useful in international negotiations.

The next show will be coming from Germany on May 18.

The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

Download
Podcast-Feed
iTunes-Abo