Intercultural education

An intercultural training course for school international coordinators

The IIT experience in promoting school partnerships, with special emphasis on ICT use, and in developing training courses in order to develop intercultural competences was exploited within a COMENIUS project addressed to teachers responsible for international activity coordination in their schools.

Coordinator: British Council

Results:

A COMENIUS course and a series of training materials available online were developed in collaboration with the partners.

The course used a range of methodologies including presentations, group‐work, role play and pen discussion. Participants received information on intercultural education, leadership, project management, student voice and the creative use of school partnerships. One important feature was the inclusion of a number of intercultural scenarios that feature some of the main issues faced by those who manage international activities in school.

Prior to the course participants were registered on a collaborative forum. They used the Council of Europe’s Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters to create an intercultural scenario and to discuss the impact of the task. Participants were asked to make some initial suggestions about how the situation can be improved in their school before working out an action plan as part of the course program.

The face-to-face part of the course lasted 5 days with 20 participants from England, Scotland, Ireland and Romania.

The course has 6 modules:

  1. Intercultural communication and cooperation
  2. Designing and implementing intercultural learning activities
  3. Strategic planning of school partnerships
  4. Developing leading skills
  5. Partnership project management
  6. ICT use in school partnerships.