Intercultural understanding

NEW: Australian Curriculum: AEF feedback

ACARA recently conducted a consultation survey on the draft materials for the general capability of Intercultural understanding. The AEF developed feedback accompanied by annotated text and a concept diagram.

This website contains a host of resources to support intercultural understanding - View this two minute introduction into what's available:

An introduction for teachers

Developing Intercultural Understanding

This program develops participants' knowledge of intercultural understandings within the context of studies of Asia in English, Languages, SOSE and the Arts.View more

Leading international voices outline intercultural understanding

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  Fostering Asia literacy: A view from New York

  'Ours definitely is a common cause.' - Anthony Jackson, Vice President for Education at the Asia Society, New York.

  Video: 15:55

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  Education for the 21st and 22nd centuries

  'Teaching Asia content, language and culture can serve as a great vehicle to develop global competency.' - Prof Yong Zhao, University of Oregon

  Video: 4:01

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  Our diversity needs Asia literacy

  'Asia literacy is... about understanding people in their own communities.' - Waleed Aly, Lawyer

  Video: 2:31

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  More than cricket and the English language

  '[Democracy and multiculturalism]... are the bonds of friendship that bind us and, for me, this is the language of dialogue.' - Amit Dasgupta, Consul General of India, Sydney.

  Video: 2:39

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  Alice Pung, Writer and Lawyer

  ‘When we were studying Australian history there wasn't the part about the first Chinese man arriving in 1810.’

  Video: 6:28

Professional learning that connects with intercultural competencies

All the resources on this site aim to develop teachers and students intercultural competencies. However, this focus is a very significant component of the following professional learning programs.

A suite of resources developed to support Intercultural Language Learning (IcLL) is available. The professional learning programs focus on the nexus between learning language and learning about culture. They provide tools for a whole school focus and for developing IcLL links with Literacy, Boys Education, Values and many other areas of the curriculum.

The Voices and Visions PLP was developed to support the Voices and Visions CD ROM series. This PLP can also be used to explore the connections between cultural literacy (or intercultural competencies) and English, and the potential of multimodal texts for use in this domain.

The River PLP broadens participants’ understandings of China, of critical literacies and of the place of intercultural competencies in the English classroom. Activities used in the PLP could also be adapted for use with students of varying age-groups.