We are happy to share a fun, informative activity brought to you by AFS Intercultural Programs, Inc. that you can use to bring Intercultural Learning concepts to life!

Stretch Your Cultural Comfort Zone® is an exercise that aims to raise awareness of personal preferences in cultural contexts and encourages users to explore the boundaries of their comfort zones. The exercise is built around several cultural dimensions as defined by Geert Hofstede and Edward T. Hall. It asks participants to identify with one of the extremes* on six different scales representing six different dimensions, then try out activities or tasks that represent the other extreme and are not necessarily comfortable to them. The activity can be used as an interactive and self-guided display, or it can be used in a training situation with space provided for facilitated reflection and discussion. While the original activity is in English, all the documents are able to be edited and transformed into other language versions. We invite you to make your own language version using the templates provided and share them with others who are interested in working across cultural differences.*For the purpose of this exercise, participants are asked to pick one of the extremes on the dimensions scales; the authors acknowledge that reality is much more complex.

Howard Gardner

Each learning style theory is different and there is no “best” theory. In this post, we are featuring several free on-line tools to determine your learning style based on Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences.

The first site, businessballs.com, offers a relatively detailed overview of Gardner’s theory as well as offline learning style surveys you can download (one even self-calculates your scores).

A second online resource is learning-styles-online.com, which gives you free information on which type of learning style suits you and and how to use that knowledge to your advantage. The 70-question test gives you clear, graphic results to best guide you to your most optimized learning experience! Or you can browse the types of learning styles and read about each one.

This visual (to the left) and the text provided on the website explain how the different learning styles interact and are related.

It’s very useful to be aware of the approaches that support your preferred way of learning, allowing you to maximize your learning potential. Also, if you identify the learning styles that you struggle with the most, you can use resources like those on the website, Brain Training Games, for example, to improve aspects of your learning.

As noted, Howard Gardner is just one of numerous theorists who have explored the concept of learning styles. His theory is not perfect, nor does it speak to everyone, but it is a very useful tool for analyzing and reflecting on our preferred ways of learning. There are several books available on Gardner’s theory, if you are interested in more information.

Happy learning!

Another tool that is offered by the the European Youth Center in Budapest  is the All Different – All Equal Education Pack. It provides basis for intercultural education, and can be very useful for facilitating sessions on the meaning of difference and how we deal with it across cultures of age, gender, ability, social class and ethnicity. Topics that the Education Pack touches on are discrimination, economical inequalities, and the way we think about and classify the world around us. An awareness of these differences is important for us to manage them effectively and appropriately.

In addition to an introductory discussion of these issues, more than 30 activities are listed and explained. They can help to explore what it means to be truly open to those from different backgrounds. You can also find a list of movies to illustrate the content and help facilitate discussions. The All Different – All Equal Education Pack is a resource that helps us take a deeper look at how we live together and how we can develop the curiosity that is needed in order to overcome the fear and uncertainty that often goes hand in hand with being confronted with difference. These tools are useful to support an AFS experience with the political and intercultural awareness that can help young people to really learn about the world we live in and have the knowledge, skills, and understanding to create a more just and peaceful world.

This online resource is available to everyone! (not just Europeans) and offers many resources like the Toolbox for Youth Work. In the Toolbox, you can find a lot of methods and ideas for how to organize and conduct learning activities – as well as a more general insight into youth work and ICL (Intercultural Learning).

The Salto Youth Cultural Diversity Resource Center (one of the eight contributing resource centers) offers materials and training that may be especially interesting for all those who are excited about ICL. On its website, you can find documents on methods for Intercultural dialogue, such as a Leaflet on Intercultural Dialogue, or the Resource Pack for Intercultural Communication. You can use both to learn about culture and communication theories, and to get to know methods for intercultural training and other ICL activities.

If you register at MySALTO, you can have access to even more materials, like online applications, your own dashboard, and newsletters. Overall, this website can be very helpful if you want to conduct an ICL activity or simply learn more about intercultural topics.

Relevant to the AFS context, these training and informative resources can be used to help build the attitudes and knowledge needed to develop intercultural competence, openness and tolerance for a more just and peaceful world.

Europe

The activities are tailored to students from ages 8-14, but a number of them can also be adapted to audiences above this age. They address three categories: culture, difference, and language. For each category, activities are provided that can help you to facilitate intercultural learning. All of them include a folk tale from different parts of Europe: Portugal, Austria, Greece, Poland and Cyprus. The activities are in English. However, many of them are translated into Greek, German, Polish and Portuguese. You can also find an English presentation on how folk tales can be used to promote intercultural education.

The aim of these activities is to help build knowledge and positive attitudes towards differences. They can raise interest and excitement about other cultures and languages, and can help people find out more about the history and traditions of the cultures through their stories. In some of the activities, learners are also engaged in a process of self-reflection regarding their differences from and similarities with others, and develop the ability to “learn seeing the world through someone else’s eyes”. This is very important when intercultural relationships are built, and central for being able to resolve conflicts, especially intercultural ones, in a constructive way.

Some of the activities that fall under the category “language” also raise interest in other languages, and help participants to identify lesser known languages. The activities are designed to be fun for the participants, and to help them to see the power and fascination that lies in cultural and linguistic differences. We can use or adapt these activities when sharing our enthusiasm with fellow AFSers about the cultural richness of the world, and excite others about getting involved in our work.

And while you are playing with friends and family, don’t forget to add an element of intercultural learning! For example, when you discover a new holiday or realize you really do not know as much about one as you thought you did, go out and find someone who celebrates that holiday and ask them what it means to them – not just the activities, foods, music, etc, but why they celebrate the holiday, why it is important to them.

diversophyGame-USletter: 
http://www.diversophy.com/diversophyGame-USletter.pdf

diversophyGame-A4: 
http://www.diversophy.com/diversophyGame-A4.pdf

print-play-instructions: 
http://www.diversophy.com/print-play-instructions.pdf