absolutely intercultural 22 +++ artificial Zulu culture +++ clothes maketh the man +++ what do you call your teacher? +++

We are still waiting for Zanele Khumalo from Cape Town in South Africa to get in touch as the winner of our Frappr map prize.

Absolutely National: And we stay in South Africa to hear from Mark Anderson in Pretoria who explains the classification system of the old apartheid system and the beliefs this led to. Mark also explains how the Zulu culture may not be as old as we might think.

Absolutely Yours: Our feature on image projection in show number 21 struck a chord with Fernando from Spain who sent us an audio comment about what led him to discard almost his entire wardrobe of clothes when he had an internship in Germany.

Absolutely Educational: Anne has difficulty pronouncing Katarzyna Kubacka’s name. Katarzyna is a student teacher in Poland who was known as Kate during her time as a classroom assistant in Grenaa. Katarzyna was financed under the Comenius programme of the EU. Katarzyna talks about the differences in approach and mentions one thing which she found particularly shocking.

The next show will come from Germany on January 26 so … stay tuned!
The Host of this show is: Anne Fox
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absolutely intercultural 21 +++ We won the Edublog Award +++ Image Projection +++ Internships and practical training abroad +++

Image projection and internships abroad – We have a winner for our frappr-map-competition – And hey! We won the Edublog Award!

Image projectionBelieve it or not – we are Number One in the Edublog Award in the category “Best Audio Blog”. This is really amazing and we’d like to thank each and every one of you for your votes and your support. And of course for all the comments and emails we got. We will get to all of them when we return from our Christmas break in January.

And our frappr-map-competition has come to an end. And the winner is… Zanele Khumalo from Cape Town in South Africa! Many congratulations, Zanele, and thank you very much for putting pin number 100 on our frappr-map. We will contact you soon and see how we can make you the guest host of one of our next shows. And of course we’d like to thank all the others for participating in our competition and for putting your pin on our map. It is nice to see where you are listening from.

We believe that “actively designing your image” is a very controversial but also an important concept that especially students should pay a lot more attention to when they are planning a stay abroad.

So let’s start with our first column ‘absolutely German!’ where Vera Klopprogge will tell us more about her internship at the World Health Organisation in Denmark.

But not only when you go abroad should you think about your image projection. Also when you start a new job or move to another city you could plan to try out something new. So we have asked Marlen Izquierdo from Spain and Anita Molnar from Hungary if they have worked on their image projection when they first started their new jobs, teaching at a university, and we call the second column ‘absolutely tiny!’, and you’ll soon understand why… =)

For our third and last column ‘absolutely abroad!’, we have interviewed Wiebke Begere, who is doing an internship in the tourist office on Achill Island, which is situated just off the west coast of Ireland. She’ll tell us about the differences between the buzzing Melting Pot Dublin, and the remote and very calm Achill Island. And she’ll also give us an insight on what she has learned from her stay abroad already.

We’d like to thank you once again for listening to us, for your support, for your comments and emails and basically for everything you have done to make this podcast what it is.

The next show will be coming to you on the 12th of January from Anne Fox in Denmark.

We are very much looking forward to the next year and hope that you will…stay tuned!

The Host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited by: Karsten Kneese

oedbAnd this came in last minute: ‘absolutely intercultural!’ has been named a Top 100 Education Blog by the Online Education Database. Wow, thank you very much! Now we’re really under pressure to live up to all the expectations. =)

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The winner of our frappr-map-competition…

…will be announced in our next show! 🙂

Frappr is behaving very strange at the moment, but due to the email archives we keep we were able to find out who exactly put the pin number 100 on our map. I took the map off our site for the time being, and hope that frappr will stop to re- or de-structure themselves every other day.

So if you want to find out who won (maybe you?), please make sure to listen to our next show which comes out on the 29th of December.

absolutely intercultural 20 +++ Live at Worldbridges +++ Online Culture & Language +++ The American Internet +++ Edublogs Votes +++

This show was sent out live through Worldbridges as a webcast. Guests included Jeff Lebow (thanks for all the technical streaming support) from Worldbridges who explained why Tibetans turn to English when discussing taboo topics.

We also heard from Helen Keegan at Salford University, England who revealed whether synchronous or asynchronous online communication reveals the most about national culture in the course of her ESMOS project.

Karsten Kneese, the producer of this podcast told us about adapting to the different conventions of formality in German and English. Karsten also gave us an update on our Frappr map competition where you can win a free trip to Germany simply by adding your pin to our Frappr map (at the bottom of this page).

Please add your pin! We don’t have a winner yet so please don’t hesitate and have a go.

Barbara Dieu (Bee for short) from Brazil talked about her experiences blogging with her high school students and the blog project exchange Dekita.org. She also talked about the early days of the Internet. Did she stay too long in the American internet? Listen and find out. Bee is also one of the people who nominated Absolutely Intercultural for the prestigious Edublogs Awards.

Please vote for us before December 16 at the Edublog Awards.

The next show will be coming to you from Germany on the 29th of December.

Until then…stay tuned!

The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

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absolutley intercultural is nominated for an Edublog Award – please vote for us

It happened again! Our podcast has been nominated for an Edublog Award in the category “Best Audio and/or Visual Blog“.

We are really honored by the nomination and would like to thank YOU, our listeners, for making this possible.

Well, and now we of course want to win the award. So please go to the Edublog Award website and vote for ‘absolutely intercultural!’.

We will keep you up to date about the results.

As always…stay tuned!

P.S.: Please don’t forget our frappr-competition. Remember, you can win a free trip to Germany!

absolutely intercultural 19 +++ Win a trip to Germany +++ GO OUT +++ Managing Cultural Diversity +++ Fruits and Condoms +++

Win a trip to Germany – GO OUT – Managing Cultural Diversity – Fruits and Condoms

Add pin number 100 on our frappr-map and win a trip to Germany! Do you want to know how? Then please read the first comment to this posting.

Absolutely International: We hear about the GO OUT campaign, which has been initiated by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Absolutely Diverse: How can intercultural diversity be managed? And why should it be managed? Marlén, one of the lecturers of the seminar, provides you with the answers.

Absolutely Student Like: We have asked the participants of our Managing Cultural Diversity Seminar to generalize a little and describe student life in their home countries, and what they think makes it different from the life of students in other countries. So let’s listen to Sami from Finland, Anita from Hungary and Anders from Sweden.

Absolutely Prepared: Vera Klopprogge from Fulda tells us about her internship at the HIV/AIDS department of the World Health Organisation in Copenhagen, why she went abroad in the first place and what fruits have to do with condoms.

The next show will be coming to you on the 15th of December from Anne Fox in Denmark.

Until then…stay tuned!

The Host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited by: Karsten Kneese

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absolutely intercultural 18 +++ The BOBs +++ UK & NATO +++ schooling & worklife balance +++

You will hear about The BOBs, the GO OUT campaign and what British schools and the army have in common.

Absolutely Fantastic: The support you gave us for The BOBs was absolutely fantastic and thank you to everybody who voted, commented and listened. We came third in the user prize category and that is solely down to your votes. Add your comments here or send us a mail or audio message to let us know how we can be number one next year.

Absolutely Mobile: Laurent and Karsten from the Fachhochschule Koblenz, Germany, give you some background information on the “GO OUT” campaign initiated by the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD. During this week students can prepare themselves for a semester abroad, both, at a partner university or in a company.

Absolutely Personal: The show concentrates on two individuals who both went to work for a period in the UK.

First we hear from Dane, Tommy Søholm, who went for three years working for NATO in the UK. Life was not as regimented as you might think for Tommy the soldier, but on the other hand even his youngest child was drafted into the disciplined ranks of the British schooling system much to everybody’s surprise in the family.

Then we hear from Yogesh Bang, a software engineer based in India who has been posted abroad for short periods on assignment several times now. Hear what he has to say about the work life balance and the concern shown to him by his landlady in the UK as he went off for a weekend in Chester.

The next show will be coming to you from Germany on the 1st of December.

Until then…stay tuned!
The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

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absolutely intercultural 17 +++ The BOBs +++ Borrowed Identities +++ European Students +++

Borrowed Identities – European Student Now!

Borrowed Identities Have you ever thought about your own identity? Or about borrowing another identity to see what it is like to live the life of somebody else? Have you ever marveled about how your life would have been if you grew up in another country? Or if you were a homeless person?

Well, in this episode we try to answer those questions as we talk about a European project which we’ve started recently together with students in Sweden, Spain, England and Hungary.

The title of the project is “Borrowed Identities”, and to cast a little light on this we have interviewed Vy, Lili, Jessica and Ross from the School of Languages at the University in Brighton and Pat Shrimpton from the University of Umea in the north of Sweden.
And please also have a look at the “Achill 2006” website, which documents a very similar previous project.

And, of course, we say hello to our listeners TT and Veronique from the USA, and Halla in Saudi Arabia who have put their pins on our frappr map. We talk about the feedback we’ve received from you, and about the nomination of ‘absolutely intercultural!’ as one of the 10 best podcasts for The BOBs award.

Well, we hope you will enjoy the show and are looking forward to your comments.

The next show will be coming to you on the 17th of November from Anne Fox in Denmark.

Until then…stay tuned!

The Host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

Edited by: Karsten Kneese

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‘absolutely intercultural!’ has been nominated for a BOB Award – Please vote for us


Our podcast has been nominated as one of the 10 best podcasts for The BOBs, the Best Of Blogs award and is currently in the final competition for fame and fortune!
Well, it is rather fame than fortune, but we are really honored and, of course, now we really want to win the award. It is given out by the Deutsche Welle radio, which is comparable to the BBC World Service, but for Germany.

You can help us by going to The BOBs website, where you can vote for ‘absolutely intercultural’. Once you have followed the link, please look for the part where it says “Best Podcast” and tick ‘absolutely intercultural!’.

Please vote for us.

Then please scroll down to the end of the page, fill in your name and your email address and click on “Send”.

That is it!

It doesn’t even take a minute, and we would really appreciate your help.
You can also leave a rating and a comment for our show, and, while you’re at it, put your pin on our frappr-map. =)

Oh, and please tell all your friends and colleagues about this. The competition is quite tough, and every vote is important.

The next regular episode of ‘absolutely intercultural!’ will be coming to you on the 3rd of November.

Thank you very much…and please stay tuned!
Anne Fox, Laurent Borgmann & Karsten Kneese


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absolutely intercultural 16 +++ Moët et Chandon +++ Internships in France +++ Bilingualism +++ Intercultural faux pas +++


Using cultural informants from your own personal network.

Absolutely interactive highlights the Crossing Borders forum which aims to foster intercultural dialogue.

In Absolutely Personal we talk to Greg Houfe who had two French internships almost twenty years ago as part of his degree in European Business Administration.
Looking back did he think working at Moët et Chandon benefited him? Would he now employ a former intern preferentially over someone who had not had this type of experience?

In Absolutely Linguistic I talked with Gwen and Mia, 12 and 9, who are bilingual in Danish and English. Does this affect their identity? Do they mix the languages up?

And finally in Absolutely Confidential I talked to Tony Fox who was caught out in a conference in Germany recently.
The Host of this show is: Anne Fox

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