The main goal of the course is to build up students' intercultural communicative competence, delivering specific knowledge in the following areas:
1. Communicative competence in the process of foreign language teaching/learning
2. Pragmatics: discourse and conversation analysis
3. Intercultural communication.

Students will familiarize themselves with intercultural theories and principles in lectures and will be invited to apply their knowledge to practical cases of intercultural communication in order to train their independent thinking during interactive lectures. The Moodle platform will be used to host group and  pair work activities on the topics presented in  the course.

Students will reflect on the main intercultural strategies which constitute the core  of the professional profile of a  linguistic-cultural mediator.

The course covers a variety of topics dealt with in the order given below:

• communicative events and speech acts
• politeness strategies
• cooperative principle
• contrastive conversation analysis

3  Intercultural competence:

• descriptive models (Hofstede, Hall)
•  intercultural communicative competence (Balboni)
• verbal and non-verbal codes
• interculturale sensibility ( Bennet)
• cross-cultural communicative strategies

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Knowledge and understanding: students will be able to explain the topics that concern intercultural communication. To this end, lectures and interactive activities will be implemented;

Applying knowledge and understanding: students will be able to apply their knowledge to face-to-face and online hands-on activities focusing on intercultural communication;

Making judgements: students will be able to evaluate the degree of efficacy of communication processes in intercultural contexts and will be able to plan solutions to solve communication problems. Short videos focusing on intercultural miscommunication will be shown and evaluated in class; moreover, students will be assigned activities to be carried out online;

Communication: students will be able to interact effectively and collaboratively in intercultural contexts.  To reach this goal, students will give individual and group  presentations  in class and will post comments and ideas, on Moodle,  triggering discussion;

Lifelong learning skills: students will be able to identify and analyze intercultural events autonomously. To this end, workshops and interviews will be organized.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Groupwork activities will be implemented using new technologies and corpora.
 

Teaching

• Teacher-fronted lectures
• Interactive lectures
• Interviews to Erasmus and Italian students
• Groupwork and written assignments
• Presentations

Course books

Balboni E.P., Caon F.,  La comunicazione interculturale, Marsilio Ed., Venezia, 2015;

Bettoni C., Usare un'altra lingua. Guida alla pragmatica interculturale, Laterza Ed., Roma, 2006;

Giaccardi C., La comunicazione interculturale nell'era digitale, il Mulino Ed., 2012.

Sisti F., Studi di glottodidattica per la formazione primaria. Raccontami una storia, Ed. Multidea, Roma, 2013 (cap. 1 e 3).

Assessment

The oral exam will include the pragmatic analysis of conversation transcripts. Attending students will be assessed on the basis of their knowledge of the theoretical concepts introduced in the course (50%), their ability to apply their knowledge to practical cases of intercultural communication (30%), their subject-specific communication skills (10%), and their degree of in-class and online participation (10%).

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Course books

Balboni E.P., Caon F.,  La comunicazione interculturale, Marsilio Ed., Venezia, 2015;

Bettoni C., Usare un'altra lingua. Guida alla pragmatica interculturale, Laterza Ed., Roma, 2006;

Giaccardi C., La comunicazione interculturale nell'era digitale, il Mulino Ed., 2012.

Sisti F., Studi di glottodidattica per la formazione primaria. Raccontami una storia, Ed. Multidea, Roma, 2013 (cap. 1 e 3).

One of the following volumes:

• Scollon R. Scollon S.W., Intercultural Communication. A Discourse Approach, Blackwell, Oxford, 2002
• Adorno C., Che cos'è la pragmatica linguistica, Carocci, 2009;

Assessment

Oral exam focusing on the reading materials assigned. Students will be assessed on the basis of their knowledge of the concepts introduced in the reading materials (60%), their ability to think critically about the topics assigned (30%), and their subject-specific communication skills (10%).

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Only attending students have to study the teaching materials available on Moodle.

Students who attended the course before the A.Y 2012-2013 have to study chapters 1,3, and 4 in Sisti F., Studi di glottodidattica per la formazione primaria.  Raccontami una storia. Ed. Multidea, Roma, 2013 instead of the course pack previously provided by the instructor.

The student can request to sit the final exam in English with an alternative bibliography given by the instructor.