Intercultural Learning In Non Formal Education Theoretical Frameworks And Starting Points

Intercultural learning has long held a central role in European youth work and policy, especially in international youth exchanges. The expectations placed on intercultural learning as a process, as an educational and social objective and, lastly, as a political attitude in relation to diversity remain fully relevant in Europe today.Several factors are necessary for the development of quality youth work, including the capacity to put knowledge and research to good use and, similarly, to present youth work in ways that actors in other social and policy fields can understand. The work of the partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth in the areas of youth-worker training and of intercul¬tural dialogue - in particular the Euro-Mediterranean co-operation activities - has provided many examples of successful experiences in intercultural learning in youth work and of difficulties in communicating about such work.This essay by Susana Lafraya is a contribution to enlarging the circle of communication on intercultural learning experience through youth work. The connections that she makes between non-formal learning, youth work and intercultural theory sum up much of what has been said in the youth work field in the past years. It is translated and published here with the intention of adding one more stone to the edifice of intercultural learning and non-formal education.

Mobility is considered to be important for the personal development and employability of young people, as well as for intercultural dialogue, participation and active citizenship. Learning mobility in the youth field focuses on non-formal learning as a relevant part of youth work, with links to informal learning as well as to formal education. Different stakeholders at European level, particularly the Council of Europe and the European Commission, but also individual member states, foster programmes and strategies to enhance the mobility of young people, and particularly the learning dimension in mobility schemes. This book on learning mobility is a joint Council of Europe and European Commission publication, and provides texts of an academic, scientific, political and practical nature for all stakeholders in the youth field - youth leaders and youth workers, policy makers, researchers and so on. It should contribute to dialogue and co-operation between relevant players and to discussion on the further development and purpose of youth mobility schemes and their outcomes for young people.

This volume focuses on a variety of aspects of foreign language learning and teaching. From a theoretical perspective, it explores the multidimensional character of language classes and delineates ways of developing students’ knowledge and skills, according to current educational conceptions and postulates. The book is divided into four parts, dealing with such notions as foreign language teaching and learning, ICT in foreign language didactics, intercultural components of language education, and CLIL in the contemporary language class. It will be useful to individuals who find the issue of foreign language teaching and learning, and its cross-curricular character, interesting.

Teaching and learning in the 21st century have new implications for English language education since the core focus of learning in the 21st century involves collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and communication. Re-orientation of current curriculum, syllabus and content in English language education may be required and this could be attained by creating fundamental understanding of the concepts in relation to the main skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking), as well as other elements such as professional development of teachers, assessment and technology integration. This book aims to provide and facilitate such understanding to researchers, teachers, students and parents in deliberating, examining and resolving the main issues that beleaguer and challenge everyone and anyone involved in the teaching and learning in the 21st century. This volume draws together various researches, theoretical understandings, ideas and practices that reflect the above.

This collection lends a critical decolonising lens to intercultural communication research, bringing together perspectives on how forms of education embedded in the arts and humanities can open up intercultural understanding among young people in conditions of conflict and protracted crises. The book draws on case studies from a range of educational contexts in the Global South which engage in creative arts methodologies to foreground decolonising approaches to intercultural communication in which researchers question their own power in the research process. The volume offers intercultural resources that can be used by researchers and community support groups to foster active intercultural communication, dialogue, participation, and responsibility among young people in these settings and those who may be marginalised from them. The collection also highlights the reflexive accounts of researchers working in a transnational, interdisciplinary, and multilingual research network and the subsequent opportunities and challenges of working in such networks. Advocating for intercultural understanding among young people in higher education and a greater focus on social justice in intercultural communication research, this book will be of interest to students and researchers in applied linguistics, language education, intercultural education, and multilingualism.

With the rise of the internet and new communication technologies, language learning has moved beyond the classroom walls. This volume presents a range of important studies on innovative ways for learning languages outside the classroom. Chapters discuss MOOCs in the UK, Belgium, China, and Italy for studying a range of languages, research on new apps, flipped classroom modes, and approaches to informal learning in a range of international settings. In these ways, the volume offers a significant contribution to our understanding of how learning beyond the language classroom will transform language education in the decades to come.

Many of today's most commercially successful videogames, from Call of Duty to Company of Heroes, are war-themed titles that play out in what are framed as authentic real-world settings inspired by recent news headlines or drawn from history. While such games are marketed as authentic representations of war, they often provide a selective form of realism that eschews problematic, yet salient aspects of war. In addition, changes in the way Western states wage and frame actual wars makes contemporary conflicts increasingly resemble videogames when perceived from the vantage point of Western audiences. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from games studies, media and cultural studies, politics and international relations, and related fields to examine the complex relationships between military-themed videogames and real-world conflict, and to consider how videogames might deal with history, memory, and conflict in alternative ways. It asks: What is the role of videogames in the formation and negotiation of cultural memory of past wars? How do game narratives and designs position the gaming subject in relation to history, war and militarism? And how far do critical, anti-war/peace games offer an alternative or challenge to mainstream commercial titles?