This course aims to develop students’ intercultural awareness, prepare them to communicate and interact effectively in culturally diverse environments, and to engage constructively with misunderstandings and disagreements. Particular emphasis is placed on recognizing and overcoming stereotypes, understanding diverse cultural values and communication practices, and cultivating openness to cultural diversity. Students will also consider how cultural assumptions and differing communication practices can contribute to misunderstandings and conflict, and how such situations can be approached constructively.  Through collaborative and reflective activities, students will explore other cultures and strengthen their ability to communicate, collaborate, and engage across cultural differences. The course therefore supports both intercultural competence and the development of constructive conflict-resolution skills in international academic and professional environments.

At the end of the course:

• Identify and critically discuss stereotypes and prejudices in intercultural contexts.
• Compare direct and indirect communication practices/indirect and low & high-context communication practices across cultures.
• Explain how cultural values influence everyday behaviors, communication, and daily life.
• Analyze simple intercultural misunderstandings and conflicts from multiple cultural perspectives, and identify constructive engagement and resolution strategies.
• Listen to and engage respectfully with perspectives that differ from their own, including in situations of disagreement. 
• Collaborate effectively with students from different cultural backgrounds.
• Reflect critically on their own cultural assumptions and intercultural learning.

• Intercultural awareness: Ability to recognize, critically examine, and challenge stereotypes and prejudices in intercultural interactions.
• Intercultural communication: Ability to adapt communication to direct/indirect and high-/low-context cultural practices.
• Cultural interpretation: Ability to interpret how cultural values shape communication, behavior, and everyday practices.
• Intercultural conflict management: Ability to analyze intercultural misunderstandings from multiple perspectives and apply constructive engagement and conflict-resolution strategies.
• Respectful dialogue: Ability to listen actively, acknowledge differing perspectives, and communicate respectfully during disagreement.
• Intercultural collaboration: Ability to work effectively and responsibly with peers from diverse cultural backgrounds toward shared goals.
• Critical cultural self-reflection: Ability to identify and critically reflect on one's own cultural assumptions, biases, and intercultural learning.

The course consists of 6 synchronous online sessions, but also requires participants to organize their asynchronous meeting sessions & tasks. More particularly:

Synchronous Part

All the synchronous sessions will be one hour long. They will be planned as follows:

• A 10- 15-minute introductory lecture from an academic: principles & presentation, theoretical framework,  tasks students will perform in virtual rooms.  
• A 30- 40-minute synchronous collaboration activity for various student teams in virtual rooms.
• 10-minute presentations/reflections by the students’ teams on their findings in virtual rooms. The lecturer will briefly synthesize the findings across groups, identify similarities and differences, and connect them to the concept of intercultural communication. 
• All sessions will take place every Monday, starting on the 12th of October 2026, from 16:00 - 17:00 CET via Zoom. The COIL will be completed on the 16th of November 2026. 

We will plan 6 such synchronous activities. The proposed ones are:

• Session #1: Orientation to the COIL activity / Introduction to the course (60 minutes)
• Session #2: Stereotypes, prejudice, and intercultural misunderstandings (60 minutes)
• Session #3: High-context vs. low-context communication across cultures (60 minutes)
• Session #4: Cultural Storytelling (60 minutes)
• Session #5: Values, Cultural Difference, and Constructive Conflict Engagement (60 minutes)
• Session #6: Multinational Students’ Group Presentations & Reflections (90 minutes)

Asynchronous Part

• After each session, students should complete a short group or individual follow-up task. For example, after the session on stereotypes, each group could upload one stereotype they reconsidered; after the high-/low-context session, they could provide one authentic communication example; after the storytelling session, one short cultural narrative; and after the conflict session, one brief conflict-resolution case.
• Each student will submit his/her a reflective journal: We strongly recommend four short reflection entries, one after each thematic session, with a final synthesis at the end. Each synchronous session will be followed by a short asynchronous activity linked directly to the session topic. Students will document their learning progressively through group outputs and individual reflective entries. More specifically, a set of four questions students should respond to can be: 
  • What happened? Describe one interaction, idea, or moment that attracted your attention. 
  • Why was it important? Explain what surprised you or challenged your previous assumptions. What challenged or surprised me? 
  • How can intercultural communication theory explain it? Connect the experience with one concept introduced during the course. 
  • What will you do differently in the future? Explain how this learning could influence your behavior when studying, working, or living in another cultural environment.
  • (For the final entry - at the end of the COIL activity): Revisit your initial assumptions about other cultures and identify whether any of them changed.

Each entry should not be more than 150 words. 

• Trainers' notes and recorded sessions