Preparation

Experiencing intercultural exchange as a chance for personal and professional development can't be taught in a single lesson. It is a lifelong process that ideally starts at early age in kindergarten and school. However, even adults can be opened for the chances that arise when people from different countries and cultures meet. Since the end of World War II twinning projects in Europe have brought people from different countries together in order to establish personal connections and to create a better understanding, which in the long run targets at sustaining peace in Europe: http://www.twinning.org.

Be prepared that this topic might raise discussions about migration and whether a country should be exposed to foreign influence. As we believe in the power of critical thinking, we encourage this discussion as long as it is based on facts or if personal feelings are expressed. E.g. some people are afraid as they have never talked to people with a different skin color or a different religion before. In this case organizing a first contact can be very helpful to make fears smaller. Ideally you have participants in your group who were born in another country.  Also most families in Europe have a migration history in the last 2-3 generations, which might give people a starting point for new reflections. 

Exercise: Explore Europe and the World

Our smartphones guide us anywhere. In order not to loose our spatial orientation sense this exercise works with a good old paper map. Either you use a printed map (see links below) or maybe you have a bigger map in your school. This exercise combines the map with small physical objects that are placed on the map as representations of aspects of the topic. With this method you can make topics with spatial aspects tangible and give participants a better impression of their spatial context. For this lesson we use the method to gather peoples' experiences with other countries. 

You can e.g. let them put an object on every country they have visited (for vacations, for business trips,...). This is an easy opener  but be aware that people could feel embarrassed if they have not traveled a lot or on the other hand people could feel ashamed for ecological reasons if they travel a lot.   

If you have a lot of international participants let them indicate where they were born or where their family comes from. 

If your class is open to talking about their family history you can also let them trace the path on which they came to the current country:   

The main goal of the exercise is to bring people to talk about their experiences they made with other countries. Depending from which countries your participants come you can also use the world map.   

Exercise: Town Twinning

Town Twinning has been a successful concept to bring people from different countries together on a personal basis. With this exercise you will explore these relationships in your town. There are various ways to approach this topic. Start by getting a list of all twinning towns. Either as a preparation or together with participants find out where in your town twinning towns are present:

• welcome signs when entering the town indicating the twinning towns
• names of streets and places
• memorials 
• festivals
• youth exchange
• commercial projects

(Source: https://ka.stadtwiki.net/Datei:StädtePartnerschaftenVonKarlsruheBeiZufahrtZurBrauerstrasse.jpg)

In a second step try to find out how your town is represented in the twinning towns. Use the towns' websites to find out about it.

To finish the exercise find out what the next occasion is where twinning towns are present (usually it's local festivals or markets) and invite participants to go there. 

Method / Process description

• Input: Introduce why intercultural competences are becoming more and more relevant in peoples' professional lives (Module 6 > 6.1. Introducing Children to Digital Skills > Intercultural Competences)
• Group discussion: Ask participants about their intercultural experiences in their professional lives:
  • Do they have colleagues from other countries?
  • Do they work together with people in other countries?
  • Do they have customers who come from other countries or who are in other countries?
  • What experiences have they made with the contacts? 
  • Did anybody get any training from the company on the topic? Ask them what they think about business rules, like: https://blog.simplywritten.com/international-business-etiquette/? If your country is on the list, are the recommendations valid (I can tell you or Germany: they are not...)
• Exercise "Explore Europe and the World"
• Group discussion: Summarize participants experiences from the exercise:  
  • How did the visit or the cooperation work?
  • What worked well?
  • What didn't work well?
  • Did anybody participate in student exchange?
• Exercise "Twinning Towns"
• Reflection: Let participants do a short interview with somebody at home who was born in another country or who took part in an international exchange project: What experiences did they make? Which experiences were good, which were bad? Let participants report in the next lesson who they interviews and what they learned from their interview partners. 

Downloads

• World map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_Map_(political).svg
• Map of Europe: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_countries_map_en_3.jpg

References

• European Twinning Project:  http://www.twinning.org
• EU eTwinning project for schools: https://www.etwinning.net