Tag: BARNGA

absolutely intercultural 163 +++ internationalize yourself at home +++ simulations in teaching +++ social barriers +++ culture shock +++ BARNGA


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laurence-with-cards

 

Have you ever thought about preparing yourself “interculturally” before going abroad? Did you know that you can simulate a culture shock without ever going abroad? It is perhaps possible to internationalize yourself within your home country’s borders through games and simulations.

absolutely foreign
For young academics it does not seem to be adequate any longer to only study in their home countries. Recruiters pay a lot of attention to intercultural experiences that candidates may bring to the new job as a consequence of an exchange programme or an internship abroad. It is a fact that young people whose personal and academic life has been enriched by several stays in different countries are likely to get the jobs they wish. Saskia, Younes and Philipp, three university students, want to share with us their plans to internationalize themselves. However, their stories may be true or false (if you want to find it out, have a look at our facebook page).  Who knows, maybe you will get “itchy feet” while listening to these stories and make a similar plan abroad?

absolutely privileged
In our second category “absolutely privileged” we focus on a game named “How far can I get in my society” inspired by Alexandra Haas and her project “Teaching Culture!“. Matthew and Tehlia, both Australians participants in this game, were amazed at how it makes the social barriers in a society visible. They noticed how some people can go very far whereas immigrants and poorer individuals, with limited opportunities, are often in a disadvantaged position and get left behind.

absolutely real
If you are planning to go abroad and it is your first time, maybe the card game BARNGA, which we have already talked about in previous shows, can help you with your intercultural preparation. It really helps experience the real feelings that you will have when moving to another country. Zydrune shares with us her impressions when she played this game, and how it reminded her of her first days in Germany, the feeling of being in a place with a different language, rules and culture from her home country, Lithuania.

absolutely simulated
Maybe you want  to listen to the opinion of a university lecturer of intercultural communication to understand the didactical aims of these games and simulations. In this last category, Elena, our editor, interviews Laurent, the host of the show,  who explains the reasons why he believes simulations are sometimes preferable to real life and talks about their advantages and disadvantages.

If you want even more background as to broader issues behind our intercultural stories in this podcast then you might consider visiting the Absolutely Intercultural Amazon store here where we have both classics, basics and specifics for sale, a small proportion of which goes to us to support the costs of maintaining this podcast.

Our next show will be coming to you on 1  March from Anne Fox in Denmark.

Until then –
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!

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The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Elena Colunga Caballero

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absolutely intercultural 142 +++ George Simons +++ The Consultants-E +++ Bollywood +++ Internations +++

absolutely angry
In this show we re-vsisit the chat I had with George Simons in show 138. George you may remember is the creator of the Diversophy intercultural games. We also talked about other intercultural games and when I mentioned Barnga, which we described way back in show 43, he told me about another very effective intercultural game. You could tell this was a good one because it made people absolutely angry!

absolutely distant
It’s not just anger which is a symptom of your being out of your comfort zone. I was surprised when Janice Ford, an Australian talked about this feeling of being absolutely distant. Janice Ford took a course with me at The Consultants-E where I help teachers intgerate ICT into their language teaching and is just one of the many interesting people I meet there from all over the world.

absolutely incredible
You’ve probably heard about Bollywood, the Indian film industry, and how it rivals Hollywood in scope and numbers of films produced so now we’re going to hear from Rebecca Chadwick, who’s just finished high school and is so mad about Indian film that she signed up to a years course at the Asian Academy of Film and TV in New Delhi and simply flew straight into her course at the beginning of July having never travelled further than Europe before. If you watch satellite TV you’ll probably understand why I’m calling this strand absolutely incredible when I contacted Rebecca shortly after her arrival to hear about her first impressions.

absolutely social
Now perhaps Rebecca might have benefited from being a member of Internations, a website designed to help expatriates all over the world cope with being stationed far away from home. My final guest on the show today is Malte Zeeck, co founder of Internations and my first question was about why such a website is needed. If you like the sound of internations and would like to join, then get in touch with me through this blog as I have some invitations available. Perhaps you were inspired by our last show to organise a foreign internship or semester exchange? You can also test your English by trying a short dictation taken from this interview here.

Our next show will be coming to you from Dr. Laurent Borgmann in Germany on 2nd September 2011

The host of this show is: Anne Fox
Editor: Markus Scherer

absolutely intercultural 43 +++ Flying a plane is all about communication +++ intercultural card game BARNGA +++ Myers-Briggs-Test

Laurent as the BARNGA facilitator
In this show we will point you to two very different ways of becoming more aware of your personality and what your spontaneous reactions are when getting in touch with people whose cultural rules are different.

“absolutely up in the air”
Our first guest is Simon Brown, a former airline captain with British airways, who tells us how the Myers-Briggs personality test, which was used to make pilots more aware of their different personality styles, opened his eyes.

“absolutely simulated”
BARNGA is a card game, which simulates the experience of meeting people from other cultures and working with them. It was played a group of 25 students from several different countries at the University of Applied Sciences, Koblenz, RheinAhrCampus. During the game the students sit at five different tables which are separated from each other. They play a card game with the rules they received on a written sheet at the beginning. When the actual game starts no more verbal communication is allowed. The students have to find alternative ways of communication if they want to play together, such as gestures, facial expression or drawing pictures…

“absolutely confusing”
We will look at what happens when you go through the intercultural simulation in practice. Some students seem to be pretty sure that they play according to the “only valid” rules, while others seem to be a little confused…

“absolutely eye-opening”
In the last part of our show we will return to the airport in Bangkok to Simon and the Myers-Briggs Personality Test in British Airways. Laurent asks Simon whether the test itself and the feed-back he received from his colleagues in the famous envelope had been useful for him. Had it changed his view about himself?

Our co-host today is Agnes Dús from Budapest in Hungary, student of the Corvinus University of Budapest. You may remember her from the interviews she made in Ireland for show number 25. She will co-host the shows from Remagen until Christmas.

The next show will be coming to you on the 16 November from Anne Fox in Denmark.

So long…stay tuned!

Host of this show: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Co-host: Agnes Dús
Editor: Mathias Knops
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