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other words, they will be better off to define problems should they arise; analyze situations; generate and analyze ideas; make decisions and determine the steps to be taken to introduce the solution into the classroom. The assumption is that the qualities that make up the four competencies of emotional intelligence, i.e. self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management, create a better potential and actual skills-base for exercising patience and tolerance across cultures.
Bibliography
1. Goleman D. (1995) Emotional Intelligence .New York: Bantam Books.
2. Goleman D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
3. Goleman D. (2001). Emotional intelligence: Issues in paradigm building. In C.Cherniss &D. Goleman (Eds.), The Emotionally intelligent workplace(pp. 13-26),Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.
4. Mayer J. D., & Salovey P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? IN P. Salovey and D. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Implications for Educator (pp. 3-34). New York, NY: Basis Books.
Nicole Späth M. A.
INTERCULTURAL TRAINING
My aim for intercultural training courses is an intercultural sensitisation and increase in intercultural competence. Intercultural competence is needed nowadays in so many situations. For example, students often need it when they start attending a university because of studying together with students from other cultures; or they might need it in their future professions. There are three questions important for sensitising people in such training courses: 1) Who am I?
2) Who are you?
3) How do we get along with each other? - i. e. Intercultural Communication.
However, at the beginning of a training course, culture and cultural standards should be first discussed themselves.
What is culture?
Referring to Maletzke it is a common system of concepts, convictions, perceptions and values that become visible by people's behaviours and actions, as well as by specific artefacts [Maletzke 1996]. Thomas defines it as a system of orientation of a society, organisation or a group [Thomas 1999]. This underlines quite well, that a culture does not have to be a nation or an ethnic group, but can also be a rather smaller group such as an economic sector, a company or faculty from a university. It does not matter if it is a large or small culture, but that its members all share specific cultural standards which they use in specific situations or for problem solving.
The cultural standards determine their way of perception, thinking, judging and acting. For example, a German company's employees either address each other with a more formal "Sie" or more informal "Du"(in Germany we differentiate between the more formal „Sie" and the more informal „du" instead of only one personal pronoun e. g., the English pronoun "you"). Or, in different countries, it is common to address people either more informally or formally. In Denmark nearly everyone, except for the queen, is addressed with the informal "du". Students call their professors by their first name and say "du" to them, whereas in Russia, students call their professors by his father's name and "выи" (if ones father's name was Ivan Sergejevich Nikolaiev, his son would be called Wladimir IVANOVICH Nikolaiev resp. his daughter Anna IVANOVNA Nikolaieva) (verbal communication). In some corporate cultures it is more common to wear suits and ties. In others, it is more casual, with employees wearing jeans and a blouse or a shirt. Or, a company, in which employees normally dress more formally, has a casual Friday (dress code). These cultural standards are only a few
among many others such as non-verbal communication (e. g. gestures and body language), direct or indirect communication, (i. e. true intentions revealed in verbal messages vs. hidden motives), perception of time, (e. g. punctuality), perception of space (e. g. interpersonal distance), social reference system (e. g. individual vs. group-oriented) etc.
It is very important to remember that cultures are constantly changing. Cultural standards can change. For example, a company may change from using "Sie" to using "Du." In addition, the members of a culture are not isolated, but in contact with others most of the time, or may belong to several different cultures (e. g. a male Spanish engineer, working in a German company that has international clients). Their perceptions can change and with that, their behaviour and those of their culture. Therefore, it might be more important to teach different cultural standards in general and not to ascribe specific standards as permanent to specific cultures. In other words, we should not speak e.g. about a "typical German." Instead, we should talk about tendencies. In Germany, for example, there is now a tendency to use the informal "du" in public life, but not in every situation. It depends on the person, location, situation etc.
What is my culture and what is yours?
An active discussion with students about different cultural standards and a cultural questionnaire help them to realize what their own standards are, i. e., who they are. It is also very informative to tell students about images that others have about them (e. g. students from other countries or faculties), because interaction is also influenced by stereotypes, i. e., by what others believe one to be. These exercises help students to realize the wide range of cultural standards and that their cultural perspective is not the only one.
If we apply Hofstede's definition of a culture as a "collective programming of the mind" (Hofstede 1991), cultural standards are often invisible, i. e., a 'culture in our heads'. According to this definition, people can see situations or behaviour, but possibly not understand them if they are not familiar with the
culture. They perceive attributes but do not know their concepts. This can lead to misunderstandings, if the foreign behaviour is interpreted by the individual's own cultural standards. Every culture must be measured by its own standards. So, on the one hand it is important to know about the cultural standards of another culture; but on the other hand, it is also important to change perspectives, and not interpret another culture from one's own perspective.
After the first sensitisation of cultural differences, a change of perspective can be taught. This is always very challenging for students, because they realise that it is not so easy to see things from another individual's perspective, i. e., with different ways of seeing, describing and interpreting the world. Exercises such as "Marsanthropology" can be used: A Martian comes to Earth for the very first time and examines it from his, Martian perspective. A challenging, but fun game [Flechsig 2005].
Intercultural Communication
I do not want the students only to learn cultural standards, but also to practise these standards. So, in the next step they shall change their cultural perspective and act from this new point of view. In the meantime, other students act from another cultural perspective. Students with different cultural standards interact with each other. This aspect of intercultural communication can be taught very well in roleplays. Many of these roleplays are published, e.g. "East - West" [Francesco / Gold 1998], "Ecotonos" [Adler 2002] or "Modis and Trados" [Flechsig 2005]. Some of themfocus on different ethnic cultures. Others describe cultures, butgive themdifferent nameswhich, the students later learn what the real cultures - in theory-were.
I prefer to usethe latter version. Students get cultural scripts, which they have to study and internalize similarly to actors studying a character. Then they get together in an intercultural meeting and have to deal with a specific task from this new perspective. I choose tasks which the students are interested in and with which they will possibly have to deal in their future careers. For example, I givearchitectureand engineering students
the taskof designing ahousefor a foreign customer. The ideas for roomlayout, size and aesthetics changedepending on theculture and the geographic, economic and/or environment alconditions are different, too. Even the presentation of the model must some times be adapted to the culture of the customer, e. g., a Saudi Arabian sheikexpectsa presentation in amore imposing frame than a Germanclient.
The task of planning of a multi cultural wedding banquet can be roleplayed by studentsin the hotel and catering industry. The coupleis inter cultural and guests are expected from around the world. Students must consider different wedding customs, table manners, local food and drinks,as well astaboos. This part of the training course emphasises the multicultural dimension. In addition, it can be extended to other dimensions of diversity management (e.g. gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, disabilities). Further more, an expert from an industry can be invited to add specific professional advice.
In a multicultural working environment, such as at a university with international students, at work with international colleagues or clients, or in any other context, mis understandings and conflicts can occur more easily than in monocultural ones. Therefore, one part of a training course should be conflict management. The critical incident technique can be used for a training course on realistic conflicts. Originally developed in a man-machine-context, Flanagan then applied it to humans, in order to collect data about activities in the course of work. He called it "any observable human activity that is sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions to be made about the person performing the act," [Flannagan 1954, see also Heringer 2004]. Later on, it became, among others, a method to gather and analyse intercultural incidents: Referring to the above mentioned thesis, that members of different cultures have different cultural standards and, therefore act accordingly in specific situations, it seems consistent that misunderstandings or even conflicts occur in an intercultural context. As such, within the topic of intercultural com-
munication, critical incidents are defined as strange or conflictual situations in which cultural differences in perception, action or interpretation cause problems in interaction. [Heringer 2004; Schumann 2012].
First, the students describe a strange or even critical incident in everyday life. Every student describes the situation from his individual perspective, with help of a questionnaire. Later on it is presented and analysed by the group. It is very important to keep in mind, that not every misunderstanding or conflict that happens in an intercultural context is an intercultural one. It could be an individual one or depending on the situation. Because of that, incidents should be analysed and discussed very intensely. It is important to widen the students' perspectives to see any possible reasons of a misunderstanding or conflict and not to stereotype too much. The incidents can be analysed based on the following questions: 1) What possible reasons caused this incident? 2) If it was a cultural conflict, what kind? Many intercultural conflicts occur due to stereotypes, different communication styles or values [Moore 1986]. 3) How can the problem be solved? This exercise helps students not only to become aware of cultural differences, but also to learn something about sociocultural backgrounds and to develop action strategies for conflicts.
Conclusion
Toteach successful and sustainable intercultural competence, this courseincludesboththeoreticaland experientialtechniques. I have already trained students from different faculties and countries. Even though they often were not accustomed to experimental learning, most of them did very well. The students were very ambitious; and, in my opinion such intercultural training courses are a good instrument for preparing them for study-related or work-related intercultural communication.
From time to time intercultural training courses are criticized for stereotyping too much. Therefore, I often rename cultures in roleplays and only allow the students afterwards to learn what the real cultures - in theory - were. But the design of a training
course depends also from the target group, in the business environment, they prefer to know from the very beginning the real cultural names.
Another criticism is that intercultural training courses differentiate too much and assume people from different cultures have nothing in common. For this reason, I also include exercises in which students discover common standards: Photos of traditions such as holidays (e. g. Christmas tree etc.) show them what they possibly have in common. Culture not only separates, it connects very well!
Literature:
1. Adler Nancy J.: International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, 4th Edition, Cincinnati, OH 2002.
2. Flannagan J. C.: The Critical Incident Technique, in: Psychological Bulletin 51/1954, page 327-358.
3. Flechsig Karl-Heinz: Beiträge zum Interkulturellen Training, Göttingen 2005.
4. Francesco M., Gold B.: International Organizational Behaviour, page 568, Skill Exercise 3: The East-West Game (Emperor's Pot), New Jersey 1998.
5. Heringer Hans Jürgen: Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Grundlagen und Konzepte, Tübingen 2004.
6. Hofstede Geert: Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind, London 1991.
7. Maletzke Gerhard: Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Zur Interaktion zwischen Menschen verschiedener Kulturen, Opladen 1996.
8. Moore C. W.: The Mediation Process. Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict. San Francisco 1986.
9. Schumann Adelheid (Hg.): Interkulturelle Kommunikation in der Hochschule, Zur Integration internationaler Studierender und Förderung Interkultureller Kompetenz, Bielefeld 2012.
10. Thomas Alexander: Kultur als Orientierungssystem und Kulturstandards als Bauteile, in: IMIS-Beiträge, 10/1999, page 91-130.
11. Thomas Alexander / Kinast Eva-Ulrike / Schroll-Machl, Sylvia (Hg.): Handbuch Interkulturelle Kommunikation und Kooperation, Bd. 1: Grundlagen und Praxisfelder, Göttingen 2005.
