apcampbell

Our EFL bloggers here in Japan are now taking part in a weblog-based cultural/linguistic exchange with students of Japanese at K.U. Lueven in Belguim. Thanks to Hans Coppens,
who masterminded the project, our EFL students’ Livejournal postings
are aggregated and displayed along side the work of the Leuven
students. Reading and commenting on each others’ ideas is an integral
part of each learner’s coursework this semester. The Drupal
based site is also configured with taxonomy and comment overview
features, which help to bring some order to the potential chaos of 60
students posting and commenting.

For us here in Japan, the beauty of this arrangement is that the content our learners generate for their Livejournal community work can simultaneously serve the Tantux project. Ain’t RSS great?

Aside
from the linguistic benefits made possible through an intercultural
exchange, what most interests me about intercultural communication is
the potential to better understand one’s own social institutions and
how those have formed the ego. Raising awareness in young minds of the
processes that give rise to being and self-identity will aid in a
collective movement toward a being-mode of consciousness, so necessary
in today’s troubled times. This is not to say Tantux is accomplishing
this, but rather that we should all be thinking of ways to bring a
cross cultural perspective into our classrooms.

Please read more about the Tantux project.
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