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

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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 JapanAbsolutely 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

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