Learning to become part of...

Intercultural competence. What a meaningful, topical and controversial term! Nowadays we all continuosly hear words like multiculturalism and globalization, but what do they mean? Our society has changed a lot and is still changing: immigration and new media have radically transformed our old concept of order, based on single countries with their own definite identity, creating a more complex reality. So, the way we used to know our world doesn't exist anymore and we've to deal with other situations, with their own benefits and challenges. But how do we do it? Here is our intercultural competence. That's the way in which we move into our contemporary jungle, trying to understand who we are and who are the others, looking for a way to live in peace together. Learning how to deal with others in our own or in their own context, is important for everybody, but it's necessary (and I hope, also normal) for languages students, like us.

I've always thought to my intercultural competence as something continuosly changing inside me and difficult to weigh up. So, this is the first time I've had the opportunity to assess it thanks to a form: YOGA (an acronym which stands for Your Objectives, Guidelines and Assessment form). It's subdivided into five main areas, that reflect the “dimensions” that compose our intercultural competence: awareness, attitude, skills, knowledge and language proficiency. Each of them is further subdivided into four levels, in order to estimate people's degree of knowledge of a foreign culture, with reference to their personal experiences: educational traveller, sojourner, professional, and intercultural/multicultural specialist. Unfortunately, I’ve never been abroad for long periods, so I had to skip some parts of the questionnaire.

I generally am a bit sceptical about tests like this one, or, for example, the European Portfolio, since I believe that learning is a continuous process and we don't need to assess it point by point, in a so strictly way. We can't weigh up everything and that's the reason why these types of test generally are very long and take a very long time to fill in, in my opinion: they simply try to deal with every aspect of complex issues like learning or intercultural competence and that's no possible to do. However, they might be very useful for other reasons: for example, they can offer some occasions to reflect about what we do and how we do it.
In fact, from this point of view, I found this YOGA form very interesting, especially because it presents some aspects I've never considered before, such as awareness and attitude of learners. It made me reflect about the way in which I generally match my culture with another one. So, I realized that's there are situations in which my intercultural competence is more lacking and how I can try to improve it...waiting for the moment in which I'll become a little part of the worlds I'm dreaming about...