INTERCULTURAL LEARNING

INTERCULTURAL LEARNING
The common theme for all three audio clips played in classroom was based on the intercultural awareness and learning of students. According to my understanding, three main dimensions of intercultural learning have been shown through the fictional characters and students stories. These dimensions included the significance of intercultural learning; different strategies to incorporate intercultural learning and finally advantages of ICL[1]. Through these sound clips intercultural learning and its function in society has been highlighted. It comprises of different strategies and realistic purpose such as learning to negotiate and living with people from different cultures and enhancing peace among them.
The audio clips focus on understanding the cross-cultures to learn different languages and cultures, else a stereotype understanding will be developed and we cannot be competent in the language if we do not understand the culture. As in the clips through cultural artifacts, cultural diversity and art, intercultural linking of the minorities like Pakistani students introduced their culture through joint projects, video conferences, photos and books exchange in UK. Ultimately their fellow students were eager to know more and wanted to visit Pakistan as it was new information to learn. These strategies were proved to be the most rewarding and stimulating steps for enhancing intercultural learning for the children belonging to different parts of the world. Through this intercultural communicative competence activity, it was an attempt to raise students’ awareness of their own culture and in so doing, help them to interpret and understand other cultures. This was a process of becoming more aware of and better understanding one’s own culture to compare other cultures around the world. The aim of intercultural learning was to increase international and cross-cultural tolerance and understanding. The fictional characters of Faith and Fasi were the symbols of interaction between different cultures with commonalties and with a sense of acceptance. A workshop proceeding was also discussed where different cultural artifacts were used for intercultural learning. This was a comparative approach where different cultural artifacts from different countries were compared with each other to identify the commonalities and uniqueness.
To incorporate the intercultural learning, different strategies have been discussed as video conferences, joint projects, sharing experiences and backgrounds, photos and books exchange, fictional characters and drama workshops. Through these strategies students will be able to identify their identity and their uniqueness and will learn about the things which are common and will realize their culture’s diversity.
It has been previously seen that cultural awareness should be given to advanced learners only by assuming generally that the low level students use to have a low level of intellect or assuming them to impossible to explain intellectual concepts in lower level. But through the practical grounds it has been proved that even grade V students understood the cultural diversity and cultural intellectual concepts and created symbolic characters to interact between different cultures. It was the essential message of the audio clips that intercultural awareness as fundamental feature of language should be disseminated at all levels starting from level one which will lead them to genuinely communicate with understanding the real world outside the classroom.

[1] Intercultural Learning