start

Global Understanding - online course in communicative skills

We would like to ecourage students from other departments as well as Erasmus student to develop their communicative skills through online interactions with their overseas peers.

The Global Understanding (GU) course is run by the Department of English. The course is organised by the Global Partners in Education (GPE) which is part of East Carolina University (ECU), our partner university in North Carolina, USA. The GPE operates in 50 institutions in 30 countries worldwide.

We are given 3 partners per semester. ECU are responsible for all timetables and arrangements of the programme.

In the 4 semesters of running the course, the English students have linked with: the USA (x3); China (x2); India (x2); Algeria (x2); Russia; Malaysia; Peru; and Pakistan.

We use videoconferencing technology to link with our partners for a period of 3 weeks. We have two 50 minute meetings per week.

During the links we discuss the following topics: College Life, Family Life, The Meaning of Life and Religion, Stereotypes and Prejudices and a Free Topic decided on by the students.

Each group is between 12 and 16 students. Students are arranged into pairs and given the email details of their friend abroad. They are encouraged to communicate outside of class.

English is the language of communication.

Students from the USA are the only native speakers we link with. All other participants are foreign speakers of English and they have different levels of language ability.

The participants from other universities are from different academic disciplines: business and economics; social sciences; life sciences; mathematics; engineering; health; and pedagogical studies.

The course benefits our students by giving them the opportunity to learn about different cultures on a peer-to-peer arrangement.

Students also learn how to communicate with people from a variety of places.

It is a way to develop language and social skills necessary for today’s workplace.

Students improve their intercultural competences.

Many students have developed lasting friendships with the people they have linked with.

If interested, please contact the Department of English (cwbrighton@yahoo.co.uk)