Intercultural approach prepeared by teacher

The teacher may consider beginning this stage with Barnga, a card game with specific rules played by groups of learners who communicate using only gestures and pictures. Every now and then players are told to change groups. What they do not know is that each group has been given different rules. As students move from group to group, conflicts begin to occur! This activity is designed for intercultural courses and meant to simulate real cross-cultural encounters. Its introduction at this stage seems useful because even if students have already learned to view their native culture in an objective way, they may still not realize the difficulties that can occur because of the differences between various cultures. A follow-up discussion should concentrate on the strategies students used to deal with the conflicts. Although learners do not use much English in this activity, it may help them understand the nature of real cross cultural communicative situations. (For more information on Barnga, see Lancaster University [2002].)—After this introduction, activities focusing on the target-language cultures should be introduced. —

• The teacher may consider beginning this stage with Barnga, a card game with specific rules played by groups of learners who communicate using only gestures and pictures. Every now and then players are told to change groups. What they do not know is that each group has been given different rules. As students move from group to group, conflicts begin to occur! This activity is designed for intercultural courses and meant to simulate real cross-cultural encounters. Its introduction at this stage seems useful because even if students have already learned to view their native culture in an objective way, they may still not realize the difficulties that can occur because of the differences between various cultures. A follow-up discussion should concentrate on the strategies students used to deal with the conflicts. Although learners do not use much English in this activity, it may help them understand the nature of real cross cultural communicative situations. (For more information on Barnga, see Lancaster University [2002].)—After this introduction, activities focusing on the target-language cultures should be introduced. —