Introduction
Guidelines about cultural differences in learning and teaching approaches, styles and expectations
Since the Training Course that has been developed as part of our project is going to be taught to students from all over Europe, cultural diversity in learning and teaching is a central issue. It can affect the social positions assigned to teachers and students, the relevance of the training content or expectations regarding teacher-student interaction.
On the whole, partners feel that the burden of adaptation in cross-cultural learning situations should be placed primarily on the trainers. They therefore advocate increasing awareness to cope with the perplexities which can arise as a result of cultural differences.
The guidelines are meant to support trainers of Grundtvig 3 courses, in particular, but are of use for anybody who is faced with a multicultural classroom. Since the course materials are also offered in a Web-based format, the special challenges posed by a virtual environment have also been taken into account. They draw on studies by renowned "interculturalists" such as Hofstede, Clyne and Galtung and on recent research.
The guidelines have been written by Edith Maier, a member of the project team with a background in anthropology and information science who is currently working as a lecturer, researcher and EU project leader at the Universities of Applied Science of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and the Vorarlberg (Austria).
Guidelines about cultural differences in learning and teaching approaches, styles and expectations
Since the Training Course that has been developed as part of our project is going to be taught to students from all over Europe, cultural diversity in learning and teaching is a central issue. It can affect the social positions assigned to teachers and students, the relevance of the training content or expectations regarding teacher-student interaction.
On the whole, partners feel that the burden of adaptation in cross-cultural learning situations should be placed primarily on the trainers. They therefore advocate increasing awareness to cope with the perplexities which can arise as a result of cultural differences.
The guidelines are meant to support trainers of Grundtvig 3 courses, in particular, but are of use for anybody who is faced with a multicultural classroom. Since the course materials are also offered in a Web-based format, the special challenges posed by a virtual environment have also been taken into account. They draw on studies by renowned "interculturalists" such as Hofstede, Clyne and Galtung and on recent research.
The guidelines have been written by Edith Maier, a member of the project team with a background in anthropology and information science who is currently working as a lecturer, researcher and EU project leader at the Universities of Applied Science of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and the Vorarlberg (Austria).