As technological, social, political and economic developments continue to increase the prevalence of international communications, this course helps students gain a clearer understanding of the worldwide diversity of cultural communication systems compared with their own more familiar cultural habits. In addition to discovering various global patterns that emerge from language and worldview comparisons, students learn how to develop the necessary emotional capacity and intercultural sensitivity needed for brokering complex social relationships between people from diverse backgrounds.
Contemporary multicultural settings require context-sensitive communication practices. These practices are so complex that they cannot be addressed by simple binary models. This course builds on concepts taught in LIR 100. Further developing theoretical perspectives and practical strategies, through applied tasks, the course enables the intercultural learner to become critically adept at brokering the production and interpretation of meaning. Students will learn contemporary, integrative, and multipart approaches that enable more complex awareness of intercultural meaning.
An intercultural mediator must facilitate the negotiation of contracts, strategies, conflicts and other relations with fluid sensitivity to cross-cultural meanings. This course provides both theoretical training and practical experience in the mediation of potentially conflicting habits, emotions, motivations and contexts between cultures. Students learn specific cultural applications of phase models, computer mediated communication, social justice problems, and conflict resolution strategies, eventually putting these skills into practice using their language other than English.
The ethnographer, like the anthropologist, are tasked with engaging in observations, recording their discoveries, and finally, representing the complexities of their findings in a compelling and effective way. The art of writing ethnographies, and all the key processes in writing field notes, is an integral approach to qualitative social research. Students in the course will learn the salient skills required in ethnographic practices, including field research, interviews, and analysis. At the end of this course, students will produce research that will impact their research skills.
This writing-intensive course for English as an Additional Language students explores how language use reflects social identities. Through academic readings, the course helps students improve their knowledge of written and spoken English and express themselves effectively, orally and in writing, at a university level. Students will analyze, discuss, and write essays. Enrollment subject to the online placement, English Proficiency, or Writing Skills Test results.
This writing course for bilingual/English as an Additional Language students introduces students to contemporary thinking about oral and written language and the use of language. The topics include the nature of language, first and second language learning, and style of speech. Students analyze and discuss academic readings and write essays. An online placement test is required. Enrollment subject to the online placement, English Proficiency, or Writing Skills Test results.
This writing course for English as an Additional Language students focuses on how language is framed by institutional and cultural perspectives. Students analyze and discuss academic readings and write essays. This is the last and most advanced course in the LNG series for students whose first language is not English. An online placement test is required. Enrollment subject to the online placement, English Proficiency, or Writing Skills Test results.
This writing intensive course explores how language reflects and shapes society. The course also aims to further develop students' academic reading and writing skills by exploring methods of active reading, and strategies for structuring and supporting written arguments.
