Can you recognize these sounds?  One One  Two Two  Three Three

Outline of the classes Aims:  Develop your understanding of aspects of other cultures  Look at your own culture from another perspective  Discuss the role of computer technology in developing intercultural understanding  Discuss the intercultural experiences in the light of selected theoretical frameworks Tasks:  Explore the national Facebook websites that you have created: internatonal group task  Respond to the contents of the websites: international group task  Discuss: what you have learnt from the websites: - about aspects of another culture - about the perception of aspects of your own culture  Discuss the experience in within the framework of Vygotsky’s mediation theory and Bakhtinian dialogism.  Summary task

Task 1: Explore the National Facebook sites: minutes Instructions In groups:  visit 2 national Facebook sites and explore their content  think of what you have learnt about a particular nation from the materials uploaded to this website  comment on the resources in any of the modes: text comments, video comments (eg. recorded with your mobile phone camera), photos/pictures and text illustrating your thoughts, short Power Point presentations (eg. uploaded to e.g. – then add the link) cartoons (add links) or…. use your own ideas. - add them to the relevant Facebook sites  Present your comments to the rest of the course participants.

Groupings  Blue: French+ your choice  Red: Cypriot + your choice  Orange: Hungarian + your choice  White: Polish + your choice  Green: Austrian + your choice  Yellow: Lithuanian + your choice

Your Facebook sites  Hungarian    Danish    Austrian    French  1   2.    Cypriot  and-culture/ ?v=wall&ref=mf and-culture/ ?v=wall&ref=mf   Polish       Lithuanian videos:  

Task 2  What did you learn about your own culture from these comments?  Does your perception of your own culture differ from the comments made by others? If so, then why?

Interpreting the experiences  Activity theory: Source: Centre for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, n.d.)  Our actions are mediated by cultural artefacts. Knowledge is not gained direcly but through mediating artefacts: in our case: the commenting roles of the people and the digitial objects

Bakhtinian dialogism  Baktin stresses the dialogic relations between people, texts, and betwen people and cultures, Although primarily developed in the conetxt of literary criticism, his ideas can be transferred into the field of education.  Dialogue, according to Bakhtin, is universal communication, which is the basic principle not only of culture but also of individual human existence (Gurevich, 1992, p. 90)  Bakhtin (1986, p. 88, cited in Marchenkova, 2005, p. 175) ‘Any word exists for the speaker in three aspects: as a neutral word of a language, belonging to nobody; as an other's word, which belongs to another person and is filled with echoes of the other's utterance, and, finally, my word, for, since I am dealing with it in a particular situation, with a particular speech plan, it is already imbued with my expression. (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 88)  Bakhtin (1986, p. 7, cited in Marchenkova, 2005, p. 180) ‘In the realm of culture, outsideness is a most powerful factor in understanding.... A meaning only reveals its depth once it has encountered... another foreign meaning.... We raise new questions for a foreign culture, ones that it did not raise itself; we seek answers to our questions in it; the foreign culture responds to us by revealing to us its new aspects and new semantic depths’

Trialogic Learning Theory  Underpinned by the sociocultural learning theory: but focus on only on dialogic interactions but also interactions between individuala and communities with the artefacts (or objects that they create)  Knowledge formation results from the interaction between learners but also the objects they create (in our case digital objects)  Karpati (2009, p. 143) ‘Trialogical learning occurs when learners collaboratively develop shared objects of activity (such as conceptual artefacts, practices, products) in systematic fashion and this procedure focuses on the interaction through these common objects (or artefacts) of activity between team members as well as within the minds of innovating (and thus learning) individuals.’

References  Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.  Centre for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research ( n.d.) [online] [Accessed: ] Available from:  Marchenkova, L. (2005) ‘Language, Culture and Self: The Bakhtin- Vygotsky Encounter’. In: Hall, J.K. Vitanova, G. & Marchenkova, L. (eds.) Dialogue with Bakhtin on Second and Foreign Language Learning: New Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ and London: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, pp  Hall, J.K., G. Vitanova & L. Marchenkova (2005) Dialogue with Bakhtin on Second and Foreign Language Learning: New Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ. and London: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.  Karpati, A. (2009) Web 2 technologies for net native laguage learners: „a social CALL”, Re-CALL 21(2), pp