Intercultural Learning, from onion to intercultural learning

1.

‘Intercultural Learning,
….from onion to intercultural
learning… ☺

2.

What do you think about this onion
just by looking its skin?
Its colour is like orange or pink, has some stria. That is it!?!

3.

It is not that hard to peel the onionskin. Just
try! ☺

4.

The Cultural Onion

5.

Outermost layer: Artifacts
- Artifacts mean physical characteristics, foods,
dressing style…They are apparent and
accessible.
You can easily see them
You can touch them
You can exactly SIMULATE them

6.

Mother tongue
• Yes! You can learn foreign languages.
• But you can not exactly understand and tell it
as if it is your own language.

7.

Actions
• Behaviours, rituals, life style…

8.

Heroes
• It could be thought as feelings as well. These
are emotions cretaed by conclusions after
experiences…
You have to go deeper to see them
You can know that feeling, heroes, but you can
not really understand why they feel like that
about this person.

9.

Innermost layer: Values
Principles, religion, worldview coming from your
birth, affected by environment
• This is the most difficult part of the culture to
understand and usually the cause of conflicts
in cultural shock!

10.

• It is always possible even to touch the
innermost layer without bring damage to the
onion and to yourself as well ( no tears☺)
Just try to understand it when you are peeling
the layers.

11.

A development model on
intercultural sensitivity:
Ethnocentric stages
Ethnorelative stages
6. Integration
5. Adaptation
Contextual
evaluation
4. Acceptance
Empathy,
pluralism
3. Minimization
Respect for
difference
2. Defense
universalism
1. Denial
Denigration,
superiority
Isolation,
separation
R.M, Paige: education for the intercultural experience (1993)

12.

Intercultural sensitivity in Practice
Night and Day
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agmDxXIZ
HNY
Source: Pixar movies
What do you see?