Search results for "Cultural competence"
showing 10 items of 86 documents
Graduating Physiotherapy Students’ Conceptions of their own Competence
2017
A competence-oriented approach has recently emerged in higher education and thus far, not much attention has been paid to how “competence” itself is understood in education. The purpose of this study was to examine how graduating physiotherapy students perceive their competence at the end of their studies. The data comprised interviews with 33 graduating physiotherapy students. The data were analysed with the phenomenographic approach. The findings indicated that graduating students had different and wide-ranging conceptions of what competence in physiotherapy entails and what their own competence covers. The descriptive categories – mastering core skills, understanding the theoretical basi…
Raising awareness of multilingualism as lived – in the context of teaching English as a foreign language
2020
Tässä artikkelissa esitellään mahdollisuuksia herätellä kielen oppijoiden kieli- ja kulttuuritietoisuutta. Esitellyt mahdollisuudet pohjautuvat 24 empiirisen tutkimuksen kriittiseen arviointiin. Tutkimuksissa käytettiin kuvataiteisiin pohjautuvia visuaalisia menetelmiä. Tällaisten menetelmien avulla on mahdollista pohtia aikaisempia kokemuksia tai kuvitella tulevaisuutta ja näin reflektoida erilaisia monikielisyyden kokemuksia. Näitä voivat olla identiteetin rakentumiseen liittyvät kysymykset, käsitykset eri kielten käytöstä tai tulevaisuuden unelmat. Arviointimme perusteella esitämme, että niitä tehtäviä, joita käytettiin tutkimuksissa, voidaan soveltaa eri tavoin erilaisille vieraan kiele…
Being a good neighbour: developing intercultural understanding through critical dialogue between an Australian and Finnish cross-case study
2020
Language educators in Australia and Finland are expected to foster intercultural understanding within foreign language education. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study focusing on theoretical and practical intercultural understanding in secondary school language education. The data for this study includes lesson observations as well as student and teachers interviews collected in two secondary schools in Australia and Finland. The findings demonstrate the complex resources teachers and students draw on to develop and share intercultural understanding. The discussion addresses the value of different perspectives and the need for a new metaphor to conceptualise intercultu…
Viewing CLIL through the eyes of former pupils : Insights into foreign language and intercultural attitudes
2018
This article examines the long-term effects of CLIL on former pupils’ foreign language and intercultural attitudes. The 24 participants, who received English-medium CLIL for nine years in the 1990s, were interviewed and the data analyzed using thematic analysis. The participants generally felt that CLIL had had a very positive effect on their target language attitudes. However, many considered that CLIL had affected negatively on their attitudes towards other foreign languages. The perceptions regarding the effect of CLIL on intercultural attitudes diverged more. The study elucidates the long-standing impact CLIL can have on individuals’ attitudes yielding insights into future CLIL educatio…
Perceptions and experiences of parenthood and maternal health care among Latin American women living in Spain: A qualitative study
2013
Objective: to explore the experiences and perceptions of parenthood and maternal health care among Latin American women living in Spain. Design: an exploratory qualitative research using focus groups and thematic analysis of the discussion. Setting and participants: three focus groups with 26 women from Bolivia and Ecuador and three focus groups with 24 midwives were performed in three towns in the Valencian Community receiving a large influx of immigrants. Findings: the women interpreted motherhood as the role through which they achieve fulfilment and assumed that they were the ones who could best take care of their children. They perceived that men usually make decisions about sex and pre…
Taking part in Nordic collaboration : nursing students' experiences and perceptions from a learning perspective: a qualitative study
2015
BACKGROUND: Nordic networking of different kinds has a long tradition aiming to increase collaboration and understanding between citizens in different countries. Cultural competence in relation to health care and nursing is important for clinical nurses and is a central issue in nurse education. OBJECTIVE: To gain an understanding of what nurse students experienced and learned during an intensive course in diabetes together with students and nurse educators from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the Faroe Islands. METHODS: In 2012, an intensive course within the Nordic network, Nordkvist, was conducted in Faroe Islands with the theme "Nursing - to live a good life with diabetes"…
Romanian Folk Literature in Our Classes: A Proposal for the Development of Intercultural Competence
2015
Abstract The present research highlights the ways in which folk literature, this valuable tool that contributes to students’ formation from both a human and literary perspective, can promote intercultural competence in class and foster a better integration within the community, while consolidating favorable attitudes towards interculturality. We share Rodriguez Almodovar's view (2009), according to which the folk story makes the geographic space expand; it channels affectivity, while guiding the learning process towards the acceptance of social values that are representative for each culture. The objectives of our study are focused, on the one hand, on improving intercultural competence amo…
Use your languages! : From monolingual to multilingual interaction in a language class
2015
This reflective paper presents a new course concept for multilingual interaction, which was piloted at the University of Jyväskylä Language Centre in the spring of 2014. The course, implemented as part of the centre’s action research, is the result of a development process aimed at enhancing students’ multilingual and multicultural academic communication competences along with promoting use of their entire linguistic repertoire. The course concept was inspired by the EU project Modularising Multilingual and Multicultural Academic Communication Competence (MAGICC), whose main intent is “to integrate multilingual and multicultural academic communication competences as graduate learning outcom…
Developing a conceptual framework : the case of MAGICC
2015
This paper reports the steps taken to develop the conceptual framework of the MAGICC project (2013), which aimed to provide action-oriented descriptions of multilingual and multicultural academic and professional communication competence, instructional designs to promote these in higher education language teaching, and multidimensional forms of assessment aligned with the learning outcomes established – all presented in an academic ePortfolio that expands the features of the existing European Language Portfolio (ELP) to the higher education level. “Starting with systematic desk research into the existing conceptualisations of multi/plurilingual and multi/ intercultural competences as well a…
Sensitizing Foreign Language Learners to Cultural Diversity Through Developing Intercultural Communicative Competence
2011
Language and culture are intricately interwoven thus teaching and learning a language inevitabely involves teaching and learning culture of its users. However, this always raises a question about which culture is involved, how the concept is understood and what it means for foreign language learners as well as for native speakers of the language involved. Culture is not monolithic, it comprises a variety of cultural practices that people engage in across a range of social configurations they participate in. The present chapter addresses current concepts of culture in the context of foreign/second language learning, discusses how they relate to foreign language teaching practices (as illustr…