English as a lingua franca and Intercultural Communication in virtual exchanges - Einzelansicht

The use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) on the Internet is remarkable and sets the stage for uncountable streams of intercultural communication (IC) in which we are involved on a daily basis.

In this course we will combine a theoretical discussion with practical collaborative work, both aiming at shedding light on ELF and IC.

We’ll start with reflections upon the use of ELF and the development of intercultural competence in the digital world. After that, students will be divided into teams to play the simulation game ‘Megacities’ (Bolten, 2015) with students from another institution. To play the game, students are organized into teams who will work on a project through the course of 5 game sessions. Teams will work both internally and in collaboration and negotiation with other teams. By the end of the 5 interinstitutional game sessions (2 hours each), students are expected to write a final report analyzing selected moments of the sessions through the lens of the theory discussed in the first part of the course.

The learning goal of this course is to equip students with an in-depth, critical as well as practical understanding of ELF and IC in the digital world. These issues are relevant for students who aim at working in international teams in the future or teach English to international, multicultural, and multilingual groups.

Note: This extra course offering is part of the research project ‘Digital Communities and Online Intercultural Competence’ headed by Dr. Milene Mendes de Oliveira and funded by the German-Ministry of Education and Research. Interactions happening throughout the game sessions will be recorded for research purposes. Thus, registered students are expected to agree with having their images and voices recorded after signing a term of informed consent which ensures compliance with ethical and data-protection measures for research data. The term of informed consent will be made available soon. Moreover, technical conditions for participating in the course involve stable internet connection, a microphone, and a camera as well as the willingness to sign up for a few (free) online tools, such as Conceptboard and Trello.

If you have questions about the project and the study, please send an email to Alexandra Borschke (alexandra.borschke@uni-potsdam.de), one of the research assistants in this project.

Be aware that there are only 20 vacancies in this course!

Assessment criteria: Final report

Schedule:

Note that all sessions start at 12 or 4 pm sharp (not 15 minutes past)

April 23 - 12.00-16.00 - Warm-up; introduction; Theory

April 30 - 12.00-16.00 - Theory

May 7 - 12.00-16.00 - Theory

May 20- 16.00-18.00- Kick-off/Game session

May 27- 16.00-18.00- Game session

June 3- 16.00-18.00- Game session

June 10- 16.00-18.00- Game session

June 17 - 16.00-18.00- Game session