This tool is a questionnaire with ten statements about intercultural situations to assist trainees in evaluating and reflecting on their intercultural competence based on provided scenarios, and on the concept of intercultural communication itself.

The use of the Self-assessment of Intercultural Competence tool aims to enhance trainees’:

·     personal and social competences through the ability to reflect upon oneself actions;
·     cultural awareness through the understanding and respect for different cultures ways of expressing

The aim of this unit is:

• define what is intercultural competence;
• evaluate own intercultural competence from specific intercultural scenarios’ analysis;
• reflect about own attitudes regarding intercultural scenarios by comparing them with training peer’s attitudes regarding the same intercultural scenarios;
• reflect on how to improve own intercultural competence.

Up to 16 people.

2 hours of contact + 2 hours self-learning.

Whiteboard or digital board or flipchart; pen for the board or chart; questionnaire to hand over (annex); pens/pencils; self-learning: additional information about intercultural competence (Reference a., in English);
self-learning: additional questions for reflection on intercultural competence (Reference b., in English).

1. Ask trainees, in general, how they would define “intercultural competence”, and write their ideas on the board/chart. With the different inputs, create a definition; 

2. Hand out one questionnaire per trainee;

3. Ask trainees to read the questionnaire and write their answers for each question. Whenever it is possible, they must provide an example related to their experience regarding each scenario in the blank spaces provided;

4. As they finish, put them in pairs to discuss similarities and differences in their answers and about possible reasons for that;

5. After everyone has finished the mentioned tasks, read scenario by scenario loud and ask some trainees to share their answers with the group. Discuss about the different points of views presented: what may influence them, if they can be improved and, if yes, how.

You can use the questions:
- Did you ever face this scenario? If yes, how did you feel about it? If not, how do you think your reaction would be?
- Which factors do you think have influenced/would influence your reaction in this scenario?
- Which reaction do you think could be the best in real future situations like this scenario?

6. Review the initial definition of intercultural competence you wrote and ask trainees if they would make any change to it now that they have learned more about it.

The scenarios in the questionnaire can be adapted according to the characteristics of the trainees. For more scenarios you can read Reference b.

• Exercise 1
• Bellow we provide you the statements illustrating different scenarios taken from the handout of the tool. Reflect on which statements are valid for you or that best describe your experiences.
  If the statements are related to situations that you have not experienced yet, try to imagine such a situation and think about your possible behaviour and reaction before it.
  The scenarios will support you pondering on your intercultural competence strengths and weaknesses in different cultural circumstances.
  
   
  1 - In restaurants I often eat dishes with ingredients that I don’t know.
  
  2 - I often seek contact with other people in order to learn as much as possible about their culture.
  
  3 - I find it difficult to adapt to people from diverse origins.
  
  4 - When other people behave in a way that I don’t understand, I ask them why they are doing that.
  
  5 - In conversations with speakers of other languages I avoid unclear or ambiguous words.
  
  6 - When I observe people in other countries, I often guess how they are feeling.
  
  7 - I always follow the rules of my own culture if I am not sure of how to behave properly when dealing with people from other cultures.
  
  8 - When colleagues from other cultures in my work group come to work later and/or take longer breaks, I adopt their work habits.
  
  9 - If I have behaved inappropriately towards a colleague from another culture, I think of how to compensate for it without further hurting him/her.
  
  10 - When there are colleagues in my work area who constitute an ethnic minority, I try to involve them in the majority group.
• Exercise 2
• To be updated later.