Agenda (indicative)
- 18:30 - 18:40 Welcome and an Introduction to SIETAR UK
- 18:40 - 19:00 Short presentation -- "Demistifying the Modern Learner" by Gabriela Weglowska, Learnlight
- 19:00 - 20:10 The main talk -- "Re-framing intercultural communication for engineers" by Dr Sophie Reissner-Roubicek (see details below), followed by Q&A
- 20:10 - 20:30 Networking
- 20:30 Close of the event
Please note:
- Registration is compulsory and open until 29 January 5pm.
- Directions to the Trumpington Street site can be found at http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/about-us/how-find-us.
- If you need a parking space booked, please email info@sietar.co.uk ASAP.
Re-framing intercultural communication for engineers
Intercultural communication skills are widely acknowledged in engineering education as vital to a global career. These skills should help engineers tackle the complex interactional challenges inherent in teamwork that they encounter from the start of their studies, and to make sense of the problems encountered especially with a view to the impact of their own communication. Working against this goal is the predominance of culture-as-given, differentialist approaches to training that Handford et al. (2019) report are favoured by the majority of engineering programmes, and the appeal of “simple rule-based recommendations that claim to increase intercultural competence” (p.172). This talk will consider how well my own approach stands up to scrutiny in the light of their ideas and observations about the field. Like other progressive approaches, it relies on experiential activities and importantly on the premise that reflection turns an experience into learning. It also integrates concepts from linguistics into the design of activities, provides participants with analytical tools, and owes greatly to the discursive turn in leadership and teamwork communication. To conclude, there’ll be clips from online content and participant comments.
Reference
Handford, M., Van Maele, J., Matous, P., & Maemura, Y. (2019). Which “culture”? A critical analysis of intercultural communication in engineering education. Journal of Engineering Education, 108, 161–177.
Biography
Dr Sophie Reissner-Roubicek teaches on the MSc in Intercultural Communication for Business and the Professions at the University of Warwick, where her work involves the practical applications of linguistics in professional training. The insights gained from studying engineers’ job interviews led to her interest in teamwork and leadership and especially ways to improve communication in diverse teams. She has co-developed and delivers a number of blended training courses, including an intensive experiential module taken jointly by professional and pre-experience trainees on specialist postgraduate programmes in tunnelling engineering and humanitarian engineering.
