1. PROJECT

2.  During these three courses students put
together a language portfolio consisting of
video and journal entries. Students will
discuss world issues such as political and
social beliefs, the environment ,
technology, ideologies, etc. and will find
a way to express their point of view and
state a position about them in their
videos.

3.  Overall Course Objective
 In this course students will develop
observational skills to diagnose their
intercultural, communicative and linguistic
competences. They will reflect upon their
cultural identity, idiosyncrasies and their
position about other cultures or subcultures.
They will also analyze how effective they are
as communicators when interacting in
situations where there are determined roles
such as doctor-patient, buyer-seller, etc.
Students will identify their strengths and
weaknesses as intercultural Communicators.

4.  In order to do this, they will explore their
tolerance to behaviors and points of view of
people who belong to other subcultures
within their own cultural setting. By doing
this students will identify the pragmatic use
of language, that is, rules of interaction,
relevance of context, and the intention of
the speaker. Based on this diagnosis, students
will identify tools that can help them
become better communicators, and language
users and will design an action plan to start
improving.

5.  Students will first identify the features
that make them Colombian and will
choose a subculture within their culture
to describe it. They will share their
findings and reflect about how tolerant
they are to different cultures and what it
takes to become culturally literate.

6.  Students will also analyze two situations a
doctor-patient interaction, and a TV
commercial in terms the discourse used and
the how language is used to persuade others.
Students will create their own videos
following these models. They will watch their
videos and self and peer assess their
performance based on the linguistic,
pragmatic and communicative factors. This
assessment will lead to the definition of
what communication tools students need to
use in order to improve their communication
and pragmatic competences.

7.  Students will reflect upon their cultural
awareness and their position about other
cultures or subcultures. They will identify
qualities of a culturally literate person such
as ability to observe the new context,
tolerance to unknown situations, respect for
differences and ability to negotiate
agreements, among others. While talking
about cultural literacy students will draw
conclusions on how tolerant they are to
differences.

8.  Students will discuss the concepts of culture,
subculture and stereotyping. They will
research about a subculture within their own
culture. They will analyze the characteristics
of its members and compare them to
themselves to find similarities and
differences. While talking about cultural
differences, students will sum up the
qualities needed to become culturally
literate. They will start their journal by
writing a reflection about how culturally
literate they are and what they need to do to
in order to develop this competence.

9.  Reflection on how culturally literate they are

10.  Students will identify the pragmatic factors
involved in a communicative situation in
order to determine the kind of language,
rules of behavior and communication tools
that are appropriate.
 They will identify their strengths and
weaknesses as communicators and come up
with an action plan to improve their
communication skills.

11.  Students will prepare and perform role plays
about a situation in a doctor’s office. In
these role plays, they will integrate the
conversation models studied and analyzed in
this unit. Their performance will be self- and
peer-evaluated and will help students
identify strengths and weaknesses as
communicators.
 Students will write a journal entry about
their first video experience and how they felt
being assessed by their peers. They will also
outline an action plan on what they can do to
improve their communication skills.

12. Doctor’s office role play

13.  Students will learn to analyze language
used in commercials to persuade the
target audience to buy a product or use a
service. They will identify and select
effective words, images or icons to
describe a product or service.

14.  Students will watch some commercials and
identify their structure and intention. They
will analyze the language, images, and icons
used as well as the story line. They will use
this information for creating their own
infomercial recommending or selling a
service/product.
 Students will write a reflection about how
Colombian culture was reflected in the
infomercials made by them and their
classmates.

15.  Infomercial
 Journal Entry:
 Reflection on class infomercials