Co-Laboratory Training
Challenge and misunderstandings in VE
Communication and collaboration with partners from different cultural backgrounds require participants to step out of their comfort zone and adapt their thinking to a new situation. Confronting tensions and misunderstandings and learning from them is a vital part of this process. When framed by teachers as learning opportunities aka critical incidents they can lead to intense intercultural learning.
The most commonly reported grounds for VE tensions include:
- varying levels of language competence
- different interpretations of tasks
- varying levels of teamwork skills
- differing levels of intercultural experiences
- differing levels of time and effort investment
- disparity of content knowledge
Please go to Task 3.1 in this module to learn about real-life examples of VE tensions and misunderstandings