Why students need a global awareness and understanding of other cultures

From

trips to the beaches of Normandy languages ??blogs

José Picardo

explores the growing importance of providing students with international experiences

As a language teacher, it never ceases to amaze me think sounds shrill, whistling and dynamic from the mouth and nose when talking can be easily decoded by our partners as meaningful language, which allows us to communicate with each other in surprising levels of complexity. Language is a defining characteristic of the population.

In many Western societies, one might be tempted to assume that being able to speak and understand more than one language is the exception. However, it is estimated that between half and three quarters of the world's population is bilingual to some extent. This is more than four billion people who understand different languages ??come with different ways of interpreting the world.

Marcel Proust, the French novelist, noted that "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new lands but in seeing with new eyes." He realized that Working with other people can learn about their culture and to explore new ideas and perspectives. options that had not occurred before we stand as evidence if we understand how people live in the world. So I think it is important that students have a comprehensive knowledge and deeper understanding of other cultures.

In my own experience, leaving my small town in the south of Spain to explore Italy for two weeks during my sixth year opened a whole new world. As I was immersed in a different culture, it occurred to me that the Italians have myself seen as unique, were actually the norm in the background and I was the outsider. Today's students are more likely to have traveled abroad for 16 years and have easy access to a world of information via the Internet. However, we still need to be guided through the discovery process so that a better understanding of their place in the developed word.

therefore promote global awareness and international collaboration in the classroom are very beneficial to our students. Schools understand this and have always supported the need for learning context. The path of the history of Berlin, the French stock exchange, cultural tour of Andalusia, writing systems and corresponding foreign language assistants bring a stranger into our classrooms are some of the many examples offer contextualized learning students. In my school, we have three languages ??and abroad keep four bags each year - with a series of cultural trips abroad

• When a group of students from eight years of land Seville and realize that Spanish has a life beyond the textbook, the year 7s visit Normandy and make people behave and react in a traditional manner, but small differences are what really counts. The dinner conversations awkward exchange students with host families in Germany, the sudden realization that Dubai is very far so many different levels. These are experiences of building personality bring out the best and worst in all of us and we can learn a lot.

However, today more and more interconnected and globalized world, the tradition is supplemented with new and exciting ways to bring the world into our classrooms. Modern means of communication, such as social networking and video conferencing can ensure that our students experience foreign cultures with unprecedented ease.

Class

students link Twitter accounts in real time through the surface of the earth with projects developed around common problems academic and intercultural understanding. Skype allows you to communicate face to face with people from other countries, which allows us to break down the walls of the classroom and phrases directly from source. Google Maps allows our students to take a walk through the streets of all major towns and cities of the world, allowing them to see the sights and get a sense of other cultures in the comfort of their own species. And blogs provide schools geographically distant way to work together so that students can interact in a secure virtual environment, providing an important international dimension peer review.

Britain - through the British Council - and the European Union - by Comenius and eTwinning programs - are actively promoting international partnerships between schools. These projects aim to promote the sharing of resources so that not only students but also teachers can benefit from the sharing of best practices, knowledge and experience with a host of positive implications for teacher training and development professional.

global awareness and international collaboration in the results of years of training in older rounded encourage our students to see things from different angles and help them make informed decisions the acquisition of transferable skills will be useful for them and stay with them forever. According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters companies can not find enough candidates with the necessary skills to operate in an international market, indicating that the greatest efforts of schools to promote global awareness and international cooperation are needed to prepare better for our students - and ourselves - for life in the 21st century.

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