Raising self-awareness and developing intercultural competence by activating personal filters

All individuals are fitted with filters which act on the way they experience the world, and these filters depend on various factors, including personal traits and cultural influences. If it is true that language is a reflection of both the self, and the culture and people it belongs to, then it might be assumed that when learning a new language each individual is approaching a different identity and a different culture with personal filters which affect the learning process. Any learning process involves approaching something new and is inevitably going to lead to some kind of change, much of which occurs without conscious awareness, yet is affected by the individual’s attitude towards novelty and diversity. In this dual-purpose joint project between the University of Parma (Italy) and the University of Salzburg (Austria) we devised practical in-class activities based on Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences and principles of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in order to indirectly ‘test’ these filters whilst revising and consolidating language structures and lexis. The students involved were learners of English (in Parma) and of Italian (in Salzburg) as foreign languages. Our aims were, on the one hand, to verify if our learners’ filters are subtly expressed in their way of seeing themselves, their own language and culture, and the foreign language and culture; on the other, to raise the students’ sensitivity to these personal filters so that they may become aware of their opinions and feelings towards what they learn in relation to another language and culture. This hopefully would be a stepping stone towards discovering new aspects of themselves, developing sensitivity to differences and recognising factors acting in their own learning process which can be exploited to become more efficient learners.