Tag: Anna Lindh Foundation

absolutely intercultural 140 +++ multiculturalism +++ social media +++ The Consultants-E +++

The Consultants-EIn this show we’ll be going to Ireland and asking if multi-culturalsim is dead then what should replace it? We’ll also be hearing from another Irish man, Robert O’Dowd, based in Léon, Spain about the added value of multimedia when doing online intercultural exchanges and from two of the current participants in the Podcasting course offered by The Consultants-E. I’ve been tutoring various online courses there and it has often struck me how intercultural these EFL teachers are and so this time I took the opportunity to find out more about them. For example I discovered one of the issues facing female Saudi students who want to study abroad.

absolutely failed
But we’ll begin with Stephen Spillane in Ireland, a political blogger whose latest post made me want to find out more. Stephen was picking up on the backlash against multiculturalism which is spreading across Europe and made an interesting suggestion about what to replace it with. So let’s hear Stephen explain why multiculturalism has absolutely failed. Soon after I had spoken with Stephen my eye was caught by a recent report with the headline Employers looking for global awareness in young recruits, which is a kind ofpositive reply to the negative comment Stephen got to his post, and tells us that intercultural awareness is a sought after quality by employers. You can find the link to that report here.

absolutely global
In my work with The Consultants-E helping English teachers integrate technology into their everyday practice I have met (virtually of course) many interesting people. Usually the teachers fall into two categories; either they teach gloriously mixed classes in their home country or they are the ones who have moved to teach in a new culture. So in our next category, absolutely global, we are going to meet two teachers from my current podcasting class as I thought it only right for them to experience podcasting from a different perspective. First I talked with Janice Ford, an Australian based in Sydney who has taught English to students from all over the world. Janice talked to me about some of the nice moments with her international groups. I then spoke with Samah Thabet, an Egyptian woman who has been teaching in Saudi Arabia or KSA, for the last four years. I was curious about Samah’s students also. In fact my chats with Janice and Samah and others from my course were much longer so watch out for more from them in later shows. If you would like to practice your English you can try the dictation based on a short extract from this category at Listen & Write.

absolutely social
In our final category I am bringing you an extract from a free webinar offered by the Language Learning and Social Media project on the topic of social media and interculturality. Entitled Give interculturality a chance – Can social media make a difference?” I was one of the invited speakers and you can access my recorded slideshow at SlideBoom.  The webinar featured Fred Dervin from Finland and Christine Develotte from France who presented some very interesting statistics about the use of social media and Liang Wang from the Open University in Milton Keynes in the UK who talked about the social media habits of Chinese students. The webinar also included a presentation by Robert O’Dowd based in Léon, Spain who talked about the multimedia exchange between his Spanish students and a group in the USA. Does multimedia help to raise intercultural awareness in an online exchange? So if Robert O’Dowd’s comments have whetted your apetite then you can find the link to the whole webinar here.

Thanks very much to everyone who took part in today’s show. We couldn’t do it without you! If you have any comments, criticisms or suggestions then please add a comment here on the blog.

Our next show will be coming to you from Dr. Laurent Borgmann in Germany on 5th August 2011

The host of this show is: Anne Fox
Editor: Markus Scherer

absolutely intercultural 116 +++ Languages Out There +++ Jason West +++ Verge +++ China +++ Morocco +++ Chantiers Sociaux Marocains +++

Chantiers Sociaux Marocainsabsolutely out there
Back in March we talked about the Languages Out There approach by Jason West which consists of preparing students in the classroom and then sending them out with mini tasks which involve interacting with the general public outside the classroom. For those classes not based in English speaking countries Jason suggests organising students to interact with English speakers online. I spoke to Jason about how he developed that side of the approach and how practical it could be.

absolutely online
After speaking to Jason I decided to ask Richard Wood of Verge  in China how he applies the Languages Out There approach in an environment with very few native speakers available to practice with.  While speaking to Richard Wood I realised that the Language Out There approach is simply what a motivated person might do and what Jason West’s methods do is to enable less motivated or less confident learners to make progress.

absolutely voluntary
I met Rachad Izzat from Rabat in Morocco at the Anna Lindh Foundation Forum in Barcelona in March. Rachad is Programme Manager at Chantiers Sociaux Marocains which organises volunteer work all over Morocco and he explained how voluntary work lead to intercultural exchange without needing to leave Morocco.If you wanted to get involved with CSM you could for example sign up to a trekking project this September or October staying with local hosts, learning a little Arabic and being shown around some of the main historical sites and then trekking in the Atlas mountains. You will find more information on their Facebook page.

The next show will be coming to you on 3rd September from Dr. Laurent Borgmann in Germany.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox
Editor: Dino Nogarole

absolutely intercultural 108 +++ Us v. Them +++ University of Florida +++ Cornelis Hulsman +++ Egypt +++ Merlijn Twaalfhoven +++ Anna Lindh Forum +++

Which parts of the world get the most attention in the news?Today we’re going to start with a short test. You’re going to need something to write with and a piece of paper. I’m going to say two words and you just need to write down the first two or three words which come into your mind when you hear them. Ready? Right. The first one is Britain. Note down the first two or three words which you think of when I say the word Britain. Done that? The next one is Africa. Note down the first two or three ideas which come into your mind when I say Africa. Finished? Well I’ll tell you how you scored later on in the show. What have we got for you today? Well in the first piece I’ll be talking to Ekene Ajufo and Polly Anna Sanches Martinez about a discussion forum event they organised on behalf of the African Student Union at their university in Florida to discuss the theme of ‘Us v Them’ But surely in this era of the internet we’re all reasonably aware of what it’s like in Africa? We’ll also be hearing more from Cornelis Hulsman in Egypt about why good information literally can save lives. And as well as good information we’ll be hearing about the power of music to bring people together in a very concrete way when we talk to Merlijn Twaalfhoven who specialises in bringing music to conflict ridden areas of the world. And I’ll be reminding you that it is still possible to vote for us in the European Podcast award both under Germany and under Denmark, and that you don’t have to be in Europe to vote for us, and that the voting is open until July! We have prepared some guidance here.

absolutely African
So in our first segment we go absolutely African to hear about a discussion forum entitled ‘Us versus Them’ which was organised by the African Students Union of the University of Florida as its contribution to Black History Month. I watched a video of the highlights of that discussion and then talked to two of the organisers, Pollyanna Sanches Martinez and Ekene Ajufo, to find out more about why they staged the discussion and what came out of it.

So what did you note down during my little test? If your notes include words such as tribal, tyrants, Aids or lions then you will understand that you have failed! If you’d like to tell us how you did on the test or talk to us about anything else to do with the podcast then please add a comment.

absolutely informative
Let’s now join someone who featured in show 106 and who I met at the Anna Lindh Foundation forum in Barcelona in March. Cornelis Hulsman is trying to improve the quality of information coming out of one specific African country, Egypt through his various organisations, the Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation as well as well as the Center for Arab-West Understanding and the Electronic Network for Arab-West Understanding. In his conversation with me he explains the secular origins of the Abu Fana incident which later made world headlines as a religious conflict.

absolutely musical
We’ve featured various ways in which music can bridge cultural barriers and in a way this is what Merlijn Twaalfhoven does but perhaps in a much more proactive way.  You can find out more about Merlijn’s amazing musical projects at his website http://www.twaalfhoven.net/ and Merlijn has also given a TED talk.

The next show will be coming to you on 14 May from Dr. Laurent Borgmann in Germany.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox
Editor: Dino Nogarole

 

absolutely intercultural 106 +++ AnnaLindh Forum +++ Egypt +++ Norway +++ April Fool +++

In this show I’ll be mainly reporting from the Anna Lindh Foundation forum which was held in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago. We’ll be hearing from a Moroccan about his experience of volunteering in Norway. We’ll also be hearing about how Cornelis Hulsman from the Netherlands found himself attracted to go and live in Egypt.  I was making an Internet search challenge recently and included the question ‘How many podcasts about intercultural communication can you find?’ and although there are one or two one-off podcasts on the topic, it still seems that the answer is one and that is Absolutely Intercultural. What’s more this particular show marks our fourth birthday since it is four years, give or take a few days, since we first started.

If I think about my identity as half French, half British and living in Denmark the conclusion I most often come to is that I see myself as European. I have even bought myself a dot eu internet domain so certain I am that Europe defines my identity! So when I was invited to the Anna Lindh Foundation forum in Barcelona last month to live blog that really meant a change in perspective for me since the focus of the Anna Lindh Foundation is a rapprochement between the countries of the Euro Med region. This translates as better mutual understanding between the mainly Arab Southern Mediterranean region and the Europeans on the northern shores of the Mediterranean sea.

absolutely musical
The Barcelona forum was a way for the Anna Lindh Foundation to find out what its priorities in the coming period should be. So we heard about a great many inspiring projects seeking to promote reconciliation and mutual understanding between former enemies. There were also many discussions about best practices and the priorities for the future.  A recurring theme was about how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and there were inspiring stories about how the reconciliation process can be promoted from people in Northern Ireland and the Balkan countries. If the Israeli Palestinian problem seemed intractable then the musical interlude on the last night of the forum certainly gave one hope. The group, Aisikedes, of local musicians from Barcelona together with Omar Faruk played an eclectic mix from the shores of various Mediterranean countries including Greece and Israel.

absolutely secure
One shining example of a one man effort to bring North and South together was Rachad Izzat of Chantiers Sociaux Marocain an organisation which helps young Morrocans find voluntary work. Before working for the CSM Rachad was a volunteer himself in Denmark, Italy and Norway so I asked him about his Norwegian experience. I’ll be talking with Rachad about his current work in Morocco in a future podcast.

absolutely accurate
Another recurring theme during the forum was the issue of media reporting. There were many issues of concern including the quality of reporting, the threat or opportunity posed by the new media and online social networks, censorship and so on. And in fact the quality of media reporting is one major reason which led Cornelis Hulsman to go to Egypt where he founded the Centre for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation as well as well as the Center for Arab-West Understanding and the Electronic Network for Arab-West Understanding. Cornelis Hulsman, originally from the Netherlands is now based in Egypt. I asked him what had brought him to Egypt in the first place. Much of Hulsmans work is aimed at improving the quality of media reporting in the region so I also asked him why he thought this issue was so important.

absolutely Mediterranean
There will be more reports from the ALF Barcelona forum in future podcasts and you can of course find links to the people and organisations mentioned on this blog.  And if you have a comment about the forum and whether such initiatives can do any good then please do leave us a comment. If you were at the forum and think your project should be featured here in the podcast then do get in touch. There were so many interesting projects and I could only be in one place at a time! And if you like the podcast then please do consider voting for us in the European Podcast Awards either under Germany or Denmark (or dare I say it – both). If you need help with the voting then you will find a page on this blog where we explain what to do.

absolutely foolish
Finally for this show I was speaking about this podcast to some graduates of teacher training courses at The Consultants-e and realised that this show would be coming out on April 2nd, the day after April Fool’s Day. In Britain, France and Denmark this is a day for playing tricks on people and I was interested to know how far this tradition extended. So listen as Bea from Argentina and Galina from Russia explain whether they have April Fool in their respective countries.

The next show will be coming to you on 16th April from Dr. Laurent Borgmann now back in Germany.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox
Editor: Dino Nogarole

absolutely intercultural 97 +++ Australia +++ Go out! +++ social media exchange +++

Laurent-008-web400pix-02absolutely down-under
The Sunshine Coast is calling, and yes, I am leaving the German autumn behind to go right into the Australian summer. Today we start a new mini-series called “absolutely down-under”, the reason is that I am going to the University of the Sunshine Coast, where I will teach and do research at our partner university. This means that the next couple of shows will be coming to you directly from Southern Queensland. So our editor Dino Nogarole asked me for an interview, a new situation for me, because normally it is my role to interview the people on the show.

absolutely abroad
Lets now go on to our category “absolutely abroad” one of the stimulators for my stay abroad, who is working for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He was at RheinAhrCampus in order to present the Go Out! campaign, in which he motivated students to do an internship abroad or to study in a foreign country …

absolutely trained
Some months ago, at the Anna Lindh Foundation’s Bloggers’ Meeting in Luxemburg I met Jessica Dheere, an American citizen who lives in Lebanon. In 2008 she started a project which is called social media exchange. You will hear that social media isn’t only Flickr, Twitter or Facebook, but also the ability to produce your own media, like mapping, blogging or podcasting. Her organisation offers training sessions which are specialised in social media exchange. The idea of it is to reach as many people as possible by using online tools or programms. Jessica trains young people how to use the social media. She explains why these net based tools are so important in Lebanon and why it is so difficult to spread your news through the national radio or through television. Her courses also help to bring different communities from different parts of the Lebanon together, for example the Christians and the Muslims.  Jessica tells us that her advantage is that she is an outsider with inside views and that she uses the social media for social change as a kind of common ground for the peer-learning between the different intercultural groups.

The next show will be hosted by Anne Fox in Denmark on 11 December

Until then –
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Dino Nogarole

absolutely intercultural 93 +++ culture shock +++ stereotypes +++ Carmel Vaisman +++ Samar Samir Mezghanni +++


peach and coconutEven if we expect differences when we travel or meet foreigners in our own countries – the best and most intensive intercultural learning is always accompanied by small culture shocks. Our show today will focus on the Anna Lindh Foundation and in particular two young, influencial bloggers from Israel and Tunisia who I met in Luxemburg at the bloggers’ meeting, so our main topic will be the “culture of blogging”. We will also hear about an American exchange student at RheinAhrCampus and her stereotypes about Germany. Oh yes, and we will be talking about peaches and coconuts!

absolutely confused
I met Erin from Texas and she told me about her experiences in Europe and why she suffered a culture shock or maybe several small shocks at the beginning. She noticed that we use very different street signs and traffic lights from the US and that we drive such tiny cars. But also, the everyday behaviour of people in the street struck her as rather different. When you meet Germans for the first time they don’t appear as friendly as Americans but once you have got to know them as friends it seems that you’ll never lose this friendship over time. Let us hear what emotions Erin had and how she confronted these confusing situations.

absolutely fruitful
As you heard, it takes Germans a little longer to “open up” to foreigners, whereas in the US it seems much easier to get in contact with people. Some intercultural scholars describe this well-known phenomenon in a comparison with the fruits, peaches and coconuts. “Peach-people” are all nice soft, smiling, and sweet on the outside and it is easy to get in touch with them and have a pleasant, initial conversation but afterwards you may hit a hard kernel in the middle and this seems almost impossible to penetrate. These people may be very friendly when you meet them as complete strangers, for example on public transport, but would perhaps not dream of letting you into their inner circle of friends or invite you to their family homes.
On the other hand you have the “Coconut-people” who have their hard and sometimes unwelcoming shell on the outside. So when you meet them for the first time they seem unfriendly and reserved. However, once you have penetrated that hard shell you will find out that they are much softer and sweeter on the inside.
Often Germans experience Americans as “peaches” and Americans see Germans as “coconuts”.

absolutely half baked
Now I’d like to introduce you to Carmel Vaisman, a communication scholar from Israel who I met at the bloggers’ training in Luxemburg. Carmel is a passionate blogger, very busy sharing her very interesting experiences in Israel and abroad with others in the world. Most recently we heard about her “find Lost”-experiences in Hawaii.

absolutely writing
I’ll present you another really astonishing young blogger Samar Samir Mezghanni from Tunisia. She has been writing children’s books since she was 10 years old – so at the time she was a child herself. What an interesting idea to publish children’s books written by other children who are barely older than themselves. This way Samar gained an entry into the Guinness book of world records as “Youngest Writer in the World” and two years later as “Youngest Most Prolific Writer in the World”. I had the privilege of meeting her in person and experiencing this bundle of energy. She told me about what kind of stories she writes about, what gave her the idea to write children’s books and how she became a blogger.

The next show will be coming to you on 16 October from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Dino Nogarole

absolutely intercultural 91 +++ Stephen Spillane +++ Anna Lindh Foundation +++ Erasmus Programme +++ Andreu Claret +++

workshop result of the bloggers meetingToday we will focus on the Anna Lindh Foundation’s Euromed Bloggers Training on Intercultural Dialogue, where you can listen to a short summary of the event by Andreu Claret, the executive Director of the ALF and also to interviews with the participants.

absolutely online:
I met Stephen Spillane and during the last breakfast I managed to interview him and ask him about his impressions. It was interesting to hear that in his life, beside the “normal” culture where he meets people face-to-face he manages to also lead a life in the digital culture meeting friends in cyberspace. He says that if you get to know someone new in this online world – sometimes it is better not to meet the person face to face, but to keep the mystery online. For him the Euromed Bloggers Meeting was the first time that he met so many different cultures in one room and Stephen was impressed how different and yet how similar the Euro-Mediterranean cultures can be.

absolutely separated:
Kyle Hickman is an American student from California doing his internship at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), one of the biggest newspapers in Germany. Dr. Joachim Birzele is a professor at RheinAhrCampus University in Remagen who has just come back from a tour of several North-American universities. They told us about their work experiences in German companies and institutions and about the most obvious differences in social life between the two countries.

absolutely erasmus:
Apparently it is not so easy to integrate in the host country as most of your work colleagues already have their circle of friends and may be concentrating a little more on their own families. So how can you break through this invisible barrier? How can you convince people that although you are only staying in their country for a short period of time they should spend some quality time with you? I talked with some Erasmus students who had the courage to spend six months in a completely foreign culture. Marina and Lora were in the same situation as Kyle and had to overcome some psychological barriers on their way to integration. How can you make friends in a “low context culture” when you have grown up in a “high context culture” One of their secrets is to host a party at which they introduce the guests to their home country and culture. Check our Marina’s and Lora’s experience reports about their studies at RheinAhrCampus

absolutely tiny:
Andreu started by giving a short summary of the contents and the output of the bloggers meeting in Luxemburg, about the experience he had while he was in Cairo when Obama made his famous speech at the university, about the intercultural dream of the Anna Lindh Foundation and of the relatively small window of opportunities, open to politics in the Middle East.

You will hear more from the meeting in Luxemburg in our show 93, where we will feature more bloggers who took part in the meeting. In fact, there will be an important campaign ”Restore Trust, Rebuild Bridges” which will be happening online around September 11 with the help of many of the bloggers who came together in Luxemburg and we will report about this in future shows. Please check out Carmel Vaisman’s  and Stephen Spillane’s very touching postings about the bloggers meeting in Luxemburg.

Our next show, however, will be coming to you from Anne Fox in Denmark on 18 September.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Dino Nogarole

 

absolutely intercultural 90 +++ learning by experience +++ story telling & cultures +++ Nellie Deutsch +++

storytellingThe unifying theme for this show is learning. Firstly learning by experience. Remember Greg Houfe from the UK who talked to us before starting a consultancy project in Denmark? As we’ll hear later he’s now not quite so sure that business practices are pretty universal within Europe. We’ll also be hearing about a very simple way of motivating people to improve their English by getting them to talk about aspects of their home culture.

By the way, if you have any comments or suggestions about this show or suggestions for future shows then just leave a comment on our blog at www.absolutely-intercultural.com or send us a mail to the address shown on the blog.

absolutely experienced:
We start the show by being absolutely experienced. Remember we talked to Greg Houfe from the UK earlier in the year when there was a possibility of him getting some consultancy work in Denmark? He was trying to find out his intercultural quotient to see how ready he was to cross borders. Well he got the project and has been commuting over to Denmark for a couple of months now and I couldn’t resist getting back in touch to see how things were going.

absolutely sharing:
From learning by experience we’ll now hear about learning by sharing. Nellie Deutsch in Toronto, Canada came up with the simple idea of inviting people to prepare online presentations about their culture as a way of improving their English. The project is called Storytelling and cultures and you can see what goes on and join in yourself by going to their website at http://storytelling-cultures.ning.com (no longer active). What happens is that once a week someone volunteers to give an online presentation about some aspect of their culture and Nellie and her colleagues offer to help the presenter using Powerpoint and on annotating the pictures and also help with giving the actual presentation itself which happens in the free tool called wiziq. This simple idea turns out to be very powerful and attractive as we hear from Nellie herself.

Well that’s it for this show. I’m looking forward to hearing more about the Anna Lind event in Luxembourg on September 4th when Laurent will be hosting the show from Germany. Until then stay tuned!

The next show about the Bloggers Meeting  of the Anna Lindh Foundation in Luxemburg will be coming to you on 4 September from Germany.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox
Editor: Jan Warnecke

absolutely intercultural 89 +++ Anna Lindh Foundation +++ The Scholar Ship +++ Bloggers Training +++ Intercultural Dialogue +++

Anna Lindh FoundationToday we have focused on innovative initiatives for intercultural training in the Euro-Mediterranean region and around the world. Please listen to some unusual and innovative approaches to engaging young people in intercultural dialogue.

absolutely-open-minded:
Two weeks ago I was fortunate enough to take part in the Anna Lindh Foundation’s Euromed Bloggers Training on Intercultural Dialogue. The Hyperlink Project, an initiative carried out by the Anna Lindh Foundation gathered 18 influential and open-minded bloggers of the Euro-Mediterranean Region in Luxemburg, in the historical surroundings of the Centre Culturel de l’Abbaye de Neumünster . The bloggers from 17 countries came together for an exchange of views and a training session on the role of blogs in the promotion of intercultural dialogue. As a host of this podcast I was invited to this interactive training-session about intercultural dialogue and took the opportunity to talk to the organizers and trainers before the meeting started and the bloggers from all over the Euro-Mediterranean region arrived.

In the training we noticed that blogging, especially in those areas of the Mediterranean where creating and preserving peace is a constant concern, is a powerful tool for intercultural dialogue. As Andreu Claret, Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation in Alexandria Egypt, expected the participants described the advantages of blogging, which allows barrier- and hierarchy-free communication and access to people in countries where the bloggers would sometimes not be allowed to travel.

absolutely onboard:
Listen to the description of an onboard intercultural environment where the participants of the intercultural training are out at sea. The Scholar Ship was an academic program aboard a cruise liner. The students travelled around the world for one semester and participated in an international study program.

The intention of the Scholar Ship was to educate the students in an intercultural way. The four key elements of the Scholar Ship program were

  • an onboard classroom learning environment,
  • a multicultural residential and social community,
  • an experimental-oriented port program, and
  • a strategic research initiative.

The Scholar Ship offered several onboard learning programs organized around the exploration of subjects in an interdisciplinary area of study. Students, professors and other staff explored subjects through classroom study, planned activities onboard, port programs, and informal interaction. Furthermore they offered the study of core subjects which were central to intercultural learning, like global issues and intercultural communication. Elective subjects and special programs during port stays completed the offer. Unfortunately, nowadays the ship is back in port for good because of lack of funding. However, before the first trip we had the opportunity of talking to Dr. Joseph D. Olander, the president of the Scholar Ship, during its planning phase. He compares the new experiences of the students on the Scholar Ship with explorers coming into contact with alien beings and being fearful of what he calls “strangeness”. The aim was to turn this fear into comfort and competence with all aspects of strangeness, including different languages, religious preferences, cultures and races.

Although the Scholar Ship project unfortunately had to be put on hold due to funding difficulties, efforts are still being made to embark on this intercultural journey again sometime in the future. We will certainly keep our fingers crossed for this very unusual and experimental form of intercultural training!

absolutely empowered:

We return to the intercultural training of bloggers by the Anna Lindh Foundation. I asked Adam Hill, one of the trainers, how you can hope to train bloggers in intercultural dialogue keeping in mind that we, the bloggers are seen by some as “digital prima donnas”, as “anarchic computer geeks”  but certainly as very independent individuals. You will in fact hear much more about what happened in the intercultural training during our upcoming shows 91 and 93. I made more interviews with the participants and asked them to share their experiences of intercultural blogging with you. So we have a lot to look forward to! Please also check out my new blogger friends’ documentation of the event:
Carmel Vaisman – YouTube video about the ALF bloggers training PART I
Carmel Vaisman – YouTube video about the ALF bloggers training PART II
(please “Leave a Reply” below if you have further links that should be published on this page)

The next show will be coming to you on 21 August from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Jan Warnecke