The Challenge of "the Intercultural"
On Friday the 25th of April I participated in a one-day colloquium on youth exchange and intercultural dialogue in Paris organized by AFS Vivre Sans Frontière, our organization in France. Over 100 people registered for this event, many of course from AFS, but also a solid representation of people representing other organizations and from the educational and intercultural fields. There were a number of ideas and approaches that were new to me, which I will mention shortly, but I also want to comment briefly on the cultural context of the colloquium itself, because the way of organizing a conference, like everything else we do, emerges from a cultural context. For example, in preparing for my own 'intervention" in the conference, I had several cultural considerations: the level of formality I would find, expectations others might have about my own role and status in this conference, what language and communication style to use, what non-verbal behaviors, and, quite importantly, the use of time.

The "rules" for giving a presentation in the USA recommend a very direct and well-prepared speech that sounds as much as possible like a real conversation. This often means an informal tone to make the audience "feel comfortable." Every European is told to begin a presentation in the USA with a joke. In reality, this doesn't have to be a joke, though jokes are sometimes used. Still, joke or no joke, a good speaker in the USA will find a way to engage and get the attention of the audience and will entertain though comedy, emotion, or highly interesting material. Of course, the USA also has a good share of poor presenters.

I don't honestly know the rules for a good presentation in France, but I certainly recognized several presentations that I felt were very strong. Catherine LALUMIERE, President of the House of Europe in Paris, was the opening keynote speaker, and quite easily the most engaging and connected to her audience. Although she surely expected a predominately French audience, and she spoke on issues important to the French, her presentation did not presuppose an in-group understanding of the cultural meaning of every issue she raised, and so for those who might not know the issues, she gave some small sense of this context as she brought up various topics. All this was accomplished with just a few notes written down for herself, yet completely thought out, clearly spoken at an easy pace for the non-native French speakers, appealingly presented with a great deal of expression in her voice, and with no visual aids. Hers was a very broad overview of "the intercultural challenge" in Europe, but sprinkled with examples of specifically French ideas, values, and contexts that do not always fit or translate easily in the rest of Europe. She emphasized the importance of having clear objectives in creating exchanges, and the importance of "ouverture" or openness and curiosity as key values for Europe today.

Also quite interesting were the remarks of Jörg ESCHENAUER, head of the language training department at l'Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, which I felt connected to what I have been trying to say about the central role of relationships in learning. He also talked about the contradictory identities we each have and how these contradictions lead us to learning. My loosely paraphrased favorite quote: "Intercultural competence is not something you just learn once."

I want to thank Jean-Pierre VAN DETH, President of The National Language Placements and Training Courses Standards Agency for reinventing the myth of the Tower of Babel. If one supposes, as he does, that the laborers on the Tower of Babel were actually slaves, then the appearance of the enormous diversity of languages becomes a liberation of the many cultures who had been forced to undertake the project of a dictator who had imposed his culture and languages on all of them. This came up in the context of concerns about the role of the English language in Europe today. <<L'Anglais, c'est l'autoroute>> or "English is the highway" but he (and others at the conference as well) make a huge distinction between this lingua franca role played by English and the actual learning of the English language and culture as it is found in the UK, the US, or the several other English-speaking countries where English exists as a real language with a real cultural context. In Europe today, the question is not whether to learn English OR another language, but to learn English AND other languages.

Other distinguished speakers included Marc FOUCAULT, Director of International and European Affairs, Ministry of Higher Education and Research himself once an exchange student. He spoke about efforts to include an exchange experience as part of a French  "bac" or Baccalauréat degree. This was encouraging news. He also noted that students with international exchange experiences are typically better prepared for university.

The Time it Takes . . . and other observations on conference logistics.
Following the welcoming coffee and breakfast, the conference program proceeded without any break from its actual start at around 9:30 through nearly 13:00 (which I would normally write as 1:00 PM). The only use of powerpoint was to show the names of the speakers as they came, and the titles of their presentations. Most speakers (myself included) sat in a panel, with the moderators discussed their work and took questions from the audience. The 100 people in the audience sat still, mostly, for the entire time and paid attention. This is not something that anyone expects of an audience in the USA, but here one supposes that the audience doesn't require a coffee break to stay alert and interested. Meals are another matter. A lovely multinational lunch buffet was provided which we ate, standing around small tables or balancing our plates and cups of wine or coffee, and then the program continued from about 2:30 until past 6:30 with non-stop presentations. While each speaker was given the guideline to provide a 10-minute presentation to allow time for discussion, there was none of the time-keeping typical in a US conference. As a speaker, I appreciated this, as no one was trying to rush me. So often I have seen very open signals given to panelists in US conferences, ensuring that the audience is painfully aware of a speaker who is unable to keep to the allotted time and ends up skipping over 2/3 of his or her powerpoint slides while the moderator passes small notes saying "2 minutes!" or gives hand signals, or even verbally stops the person at the assigned ending time. Speakers at French conferences are presumably expected to self-regulate, but, on the other hand, this did not happen in all cases here and the last two speakers obviously felt the pressure to move their own presentations more quickly at the end of a long day.

The program concluded with a brief overview of the day, some necessary thank yous, and a simple cocktail reception. The relatively small size of the conference allowed for a good deal of informal and friendly interaction.

Merci beaucoup, AFS France.
I am very grateful to AFS in France for organizing this conference and hope, as they do, that it leads to more discussion about ways to increase intercultural competence and the role that exchange programs can play. They plan to produce a set of proceedings in French, and later in English, so that the results can be more widely shared. I will provide a link to these on the AFS web site in the Research and Education section.

Bettina Hansel
Director of Intercultural Education and Research
AFS International

UPDATE: AFS France posted photos of the event.