Intercultural communication training respectful of learners’ characteristics : a pedagogical model for social promotion of intercultutral communication, expertise and skills

Abstract

The escalating immigrant presence in Europe highlights certain issues of diversity in terms of language, para-language, religion, territoriality, class, and ethnicity. The reality today more than ever is that ‘most, if not all nation States are differentiated polyethnic States…’ (Gundara 2000: 24). This calls for the strengthening of intercultural communication competencies and skills in particular within institutions that are professionally in contact with mobility. This paper presents a training methodology for intercultural communication training, developed within the framework of lifelong learning, Grundtvig 1.1. This paper also proposes that in order for such training to be successful one needs to respect participants’ different pathways that “work within each of us to create a system of learning based upon stimulus processing, the use of memory, and the pattern-driven ingenuity of our human capacity to respond” to the learning experience (Grundtvig Let Me Learn Training Module 2005).