The Intercultural Training Program
Level 1 Workshop
Building Intercultural Relationships Learning to See
This introductory workshop firstly offers participants strategies by which to "learn to learn" about culture. Through a three step methodology (see, understand, act), they acquire a repertoire of practical skills for building healthy and ethnical intercultural partnerships in specific personal and professional contexts.
Learners then apply these cognitive skills to their lived experience so as to heighten their awareness and sensitivity to the underlying norms, values and beliefs of cultural phenomenon.
A filmed dramatized sequence concludes the workshop experience with an area simulation exercise, allowing participants to transfer their intercultural skills to an unfamiliar cultural environment.
Level 2 Workshop
Building Intercultural Dialogue
(Learning to Understand)
This intermediate workshop further develops the capacity of participants to build strong communicative relationships and to establish dialogue with individuals from different cultures. Based on the use of cultural mediators or interpreters, learners acquire a second set of skills that give them deeper insight into dynamics of a specific culture, especially in relation to its more informal or “hidden” dimension” as well as to its historical development. Based on this deeper understanding, the learning process offers data-gathering techniques for identifying systemic cultural needs and for building working intercultural collaborations by which to meet the needs identified. A concluding filmed dramatized sequence allows participants to transfer their intercultural skills to an unfamiliar cultural environment through an area simulation exercise.
Level 2 Workshop
Building Intercultural Dialogue
Learning to Understand
The intermediate workshop further develops the capacity of participants to build strong communicative relationships and to establish dialogue with individuals from different cultures. Based on the use of cultural mediators or interpreters, learners acquire a second set of skills that give them deeper insight into dynamics of a specific culture, especially in relation to its more informal or "hidden" dimensions as well as to its historical development.
Based on this deeper understanding, the learning process offers data-gathering techniques for identifying systemic cultural needs and for building working intercultural collaboration by which to meet the needs identified. As in the first workshop, a concluding filmed dramatized sequence allows participants to transfer their intercultural skills to an unfamiliar cultural environment through an area simulation exercise.
Level 3 Workshop
Intercultural Problem-Solving and Project Management
Learning to Act
The third workshop consolidates the practices and techniques covered in the two previous sessions. Participants are required to analyze a specific cultural context of their choice and to prioritize the systemic needs to be addressed within that environment.
Emphasis is placed on enhancing the individual communicative style of learners in effectively presenting their cultural analysis to others. Participants then receive creativity training for designing projects by which to meet that need targeted, in relation to their particular skills and interests.
This workshop presents project management guidelines and strategies for assuring appropriate resources, mentoring and feedback when implementing an initiative for social action. This advanced workshop stresses the importance of individuals as agents for systemic creative change and innovation within culturally diverse settings and organizations.
Training the Trainer Program
Participants having completed the workshop series are eligible for the Training the Trainer Program, in conjunction with collaborating postsecondary
institutions.
This 36-hour course may be accredited with the equivalent of a 3-credit, continuing professional accreditation.
The program also gives a historical overview of the major advances achieved in the academic disciplines with respect to culture, interdisciplinary research and social change.
This training provides effective strategies for countering different forms of cultural conflict such as racism and radicalization through day-to-day activities.
Facilitator: Dr. Roger Parent (Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta) has designed and field-tested the workshop process nationally and internationally over a twenty year period in academic, government and organizational circles, including Aboriginal and First Nations communities. Award-wining academic publications, films and audio-visual learning resources in French and English support and enrich the learning process.
Guest Speaker: Dr. Michel Zekulin (University of Australia), on the related issue of Radicalization to Violence Research. https://www.tsas.ca/affiliate/michael-zekulin/