The University of Kent has welcomed international students from around the world for over 50 years. The changing nature of the student body, aligned with the shifting global contact in which higher education is embedded, means UK Higher Education Institutions (HEI) must closely keep in touch with the needs of international students and the developing requirements of educational support available to students in any international HE environment.
Talking Cultures refers to a series of training and consultancy activities devised by the Centre for English and World Languages (CEWL). Our work aims to foster and enhance intercultural awareness both within and beyond the University context. Talking Cultures involves the development of intercultural awareness in Higher Education teaching and learning. Our provision also includes specifically focused CPD for professionals working or studying in international environments ranging from academics in specific fields to trainee medical practitioners.
This year we launched a Talking Cultures credit-bearing module (ENLA4007). The module aims to tackle the notion of intercultural communication and to develop students’ engagement and integration with their fellow classmates within a contemporary internationalised classroom. The module also aims to help increase awareness of cultural differences and will explore cultural heritage, prejudices and stereotypes. Thematic areas that will be covered throughout the workshops range from awareness of ethnocentrism and cultural bias, cultural identity, and identification of possible links between culture and history and culture and language. Students attending this module are able to select a language to learn alongside the module through Language Express.
Students will actively participate in independent and collaborative work in the form of leading and engaging in seminar discussions, giving mini presentations, writing a journal, and an essay or case study. It is anticipated that through the range of workshops, students will develop their communication skills to engage effectively while in discussion, persuasion, argumentation and negotiation both in written and in oral form, individually and as part of a team. This term, the students attending this module come from a range of cultural backgrounds, which helps to facilitate the engagement and interaction within the classroom.
More information about this module can be found at https://www.kent.ac.uk/humanities/studying/modules/2018-2019/cewl). Please feel free to contact us at cewl@kent.ac.uk or the course convenor, Charlene Earl at c.m.earl@kent.ac.uk, if you have any question specific to the module and course content.
Written for the CEWL Blog by Charlene Earl at c.m.earl@kent.ac.uk