Modern life is seriously affected by globalization. Along your whole life you encounter thousands of situations in which you interact with people who do not share the same background as you. We are more mobile, fewer of us stay in the same place for all or most of our lives and our everyday contacts span many different social groups. In addition, the internet gives us unlimited access to people and information and enables us to communicate without being constrained by time and place. These aspects of globalization have made societies ‘superdiverse'.
Living in a superdiverse world requires a flexible and expansive communicative repertoire. You need to be sensitive to variation in communicative behavior across social groups and across different settings.

The aim of this course is to understand the communicative challenges of life in times of globalization and superdiversity.

This entails knowing about the phenomena to which globalization gives rise, knowing about how people acquire and use the communicative skills one needs to succeed, knowing what roles education and policy making plays in this, and knowing about how all this contact between cultures or sub-cultures affects the people it concerns.

Effective global communication requires that people understand both international and intercultural differences. Success is based on communicating goals and bridging differences.
Students attending this course:
- will establish a strong theoretical and applied foundation, while learning the nuances of the global environment;
-will explore the cultural implications of the ongoing changes in how people from various cultures interact with each other and the changing world;
-will gain the skills necessary to communicate effectively in complex circumstances making use of diverse communication genres, and engaging different audiences across multiple cultural settings.

On completion of the course students will be able to deal with topics such as:
1) Language, globalization and diversity;
2) Societies and the individual;
3) Differences and common ground;
4) Organizations and roles;
5) Managing time

This module is structured around students' understanding of the target culture while developing their language and intercultural competencies.
At the end of the course students will be able to gather and interpret relevant data, to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions in intercultural contexts and they will be able to communicate and interact independently in international contexts using fluent and solid English.

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

Course books

Detailed information about bibliography will be given during classes. Foreing students are strongly recommended to get in contact with Prof. Rossi

Assessment

Computer test

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.