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Ourania Katsara: Using postmethod pedagogy to build intercultural competence: The Greek case

Presentation topic

This session will describe how language and culture can be integrated in an English for specific purposes classroom in a Greek university. The presenter will demonstrate ways -which can be adapted to any world language classroom- where the use of historical facts can be used as basis to design and incorporate additional embedded tasks in a set of given activities offered in a course book. It will explain how students can examine the 3Ps (Perspectives, Practices and Products), which elaborate the concepts of Big C Culture and little c culture.

Why have you chosen this topic for your presentation?

The goal of this session is to show how the postmethod pedagogy can help tutors manage and transform curricula in order to deal with inadequate treatment of the intercultural dimension of languages within language learning setting(Corbett, 2003).

It is very important for every tutor to be able to deal with restrictions that are unavoidable in every teaching situation/context and therefore any knowledge of appropriate pedagogies is vital.

What do you want participants to take away from your presentation?

Participants will receive strategies to deliver classroom activities that can allow students to recognize differences and variations within their own culture and within other cultures. This methodology training is useful and will help particpants reflect on their own metthodological approach.

Bio

Ourania Katsara is an EAP tutor in University of Patras, Greece. She is teaching specialised English since 2003 and has also taught on pre-sessional courses in UK unviersities in order to help international students get prepared for their academic studies. She holds a BA in English Language and English and European Literature, Essex University, UK, an MA in Applied Linguistics, Essex University, UK and a PhD in International Education, Brighton University, UK. She has published in peer reviewed journals and participated in International conferences, She is currently on one year sabbatical leave being a visiting researcher in Maastricht University, Netherlands.