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Intercultural Communication

Cursusdoel

By the end of the course, students can:

1.Demonstrate critical understanding of the theories, approaches, and practices of intercultural communication in the contemporary world.
2.Critically apply these theories, approaches, and practices to intercultural communication phenomena in the contemporary world.
3. Critically assess your intercultural awareness and skills.
4. Analyze visual, written, and face-to-face intercultural situations, and effectively report their findings and opinions.

Specific for the Community Engaged Learning (CEL) component:

5. Create activities to foster the linguistic, cultural, and social inclusion of young migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in the host society.
6. Pilot and revise the activities together with other students and stakeholders.
7. Cooperate with people with different cultural backgrounds using appropriate language, communication, and multilingual skills.

Evaluation in the course is based on these components:

Midterm exam	15%	1, 2, 4
CEL group work	30%	1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Term paper	35%	1, 2, 3, 4
Portfolio assignments	20%	1, 2, 3, 4, 6

Vakinhoudelijk

The mobility of people within and beyond national borders, both in real and virtual life, has created the need for people to understand and interact with others who have a different (cultural) background. In these new situations, individual identities and established “recipes” for (intercultural) interaction are challenged and contested, often requiring (re)construction and (re)negotiation, or even abandonment. Individuals must develop new ways of learning and interacting, and skills of adaptation and adjustment, to engage competently in intercultural encounters. This course develops students’ knowledge about and experience in dealing with interculturality and intercultural communication. You will learn about the role of culture, language, and power and how they impact human communication, the complexity of identity, the causes and consequences of processes such as stereotyping, and how people manage intercultural communication processes in these new situations. This course reframes intercultural communication through a power-based perspective that highlights how macro structures and forces (governmental, historical, economic, media, institutional forces) interrelate with micro-communication acts, encounters, and relationships between and within cultural groups. Such a macro-micro power focus reveals the complex, dynamic, and multi-layered nature of contemporary intercultural communication. Meaning, this course will introduce you to both the visible aspects of power (what we see but take-for-granted given its naturalized appearance) as well as the hidden (beneath-the-surface) ones, that constitute intercultural communication encounters and relations.

However, you cannot become a competent intercultural communicator only through knowledge: it is important that you experience directly how people act, interact and communicate – from their perspective. In this course, you will get opportunities to learn through experience. Class discussions, student-led case presentations and activities such as games will be complemented by the critical analysis of traditional media and social media, enhancing your awareness of your own values, norms, and biases. This will prepare you to engage and work together with ‘Cultural Others’ through a community engaged learning project. This will be realized through a community engaged learning (CEL) group project.

Finally, you will learn to critically self-reflect on, and evaluate, your own intercultural competence. You will reflect on your intercultural exchanges and encounters in assignments and in the term paper, critically linking the theories and notions learned in the course to your personal experience.

Format
Classes will be dedicated to the discussion of readings and the discussion of intercultural experiences, where we will discuss personal cases and experiences, we all will bring in, linking them to the theories and notions of the week theme(s). Guest speakers might be invited to join our discussions. Topics that we will discuss are culture, diversity competence as opposed to intercultural competence, power and ethics in communicative situations and diversity-sensitive communication. We will engage in discussions, peer-reflection sessions, and activities to make sense of our experiences, drawing from the readings. This sense-making will be further elaborated in in the term paper.

CEL project: we will also engage with the ‘wider community’ outside of our classroom and/or our UCU ‘bubble’ by collaborating with people and institutional partners in addressing (inter)cultural communication challenges. This will happen in the framework of the international project MILAGRO. Students will collaborate with local stakeholders in creating and piloting activities to foster the linguistic, cultural and social inclusion of young migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Utrecht.

My expectations: I am looking forward to this course and working and learning together with students about intercultural communication. The success of this course depends to a great extent to your attitude towards the course. Communication is something you do together, so we need students to actively join classes and discussions to be able to learn from each and with each other. Reflecting on our own experiences may pull us out of our comfort zone: it is very important to collaborate in creating an open and safe class environment. To gain sufficient depth in the discussions, we also need to prepare for classes and engage critically with the assigned readings and activities.

Werkvormen

UCU course

Toetsing

CEL group work

Verplicht | Weging 30% | ECTS 2,25

Term paper

Verplicht | Weging 35% | ECTS 2,63

Portfolio assignments

Verplicht | Weging 20% | ECTS 1,5

midterm FEEDBACK

Niet verplicht

Midterm exam

Verplicht | Weging 15% | ECTS 1,13

Ingangseisen en voorkennis

Ingangseisen

Je moet minimaal 60 punten van het bachelor programma hebben behaald

Voorkennis

Er is geen informatie over benodigde voorkennis bekend.

Voertalen

Engels

Cursusmomenten

Gerelateerde studies

All UCU courses

Tentamens

Er is geen tentamenrooster beschikbaar voor deze cursus

Verplicht materiaal

Materiaal	Omschrijving
BOEK	Halualani, Rona Tamiko. Intercultural Communication : A Critical Perspective. Second edition (only), Cognella, 2022.
DIVERSE	Complementing literature will be recommended and/or provided during the semester, (depending on the cases brought in by students and the topics of the guest lectures). When possible, readings will be made available on Blackboard/Teams, or through links via University Library.

Aanbevolen materiaal

Er is geen informatie over de aanbevolen literatuur bekend

Coördinator

drs. T. Bruni

T.Bruni@uu.nl

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