Communicating across Cultures (FutureLearn)

Boost your intercultural communication skills and better understand how to behave in multicultural and multilingual situations. Learn how to improve your cultural intelligence with the British Council. In an increasingly diverse and multicultural world, being able to navigate the complexities and nuances of intercultural communication is vital. On this course, culture experts from the British Council will guide you on how to successfully navigate multicultural and multilingual situations, improving your cultural intelligence (CQ) in the process.

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Develop your intercultural communication skills

You’ll be invited to reflect on what culture is, and how it’s influenced your preferences and behaviour in intercultural situations.

You’ll evaluate both new and familiar cultural situations, reflecting on how others might react to your behaviours, enabling you to respond positively and empathetically.

Discover how cultural intelligence can be learned

Identifying practical strategies and techniques, you’ll learn how to communicate effectively and manage challenging intercultural situations.

You’ll examine how to successfully work in multicultural teams. By developing an intercultural mindset, you’ll see how to adapt to different communication styles, and enhance your own cultural intelligence by better understanding how people from other cultural backgrounds communicate.

Explore the importance of intercultural communication in the workplace and society

As businesses become more international, and workplaces more diverse, it’s crucial to communicate with sensitivity.

Moreover, intercultural communication is vital to improve engagement and trust in an increasingly divided society – especially when young people and young women often feel excluded from decision making.

You’ll come away from this course more confident in your ability to work effectively with people from varied backgrounds.

What topics will you cover?

- Exploring the foundations of intercultural communication

- Developing an intercultural mindset

- Communicating with cultural intelligence (CQ)

- Adapting to different communication styles

- Working in multicultural teams

Learning on this course

You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Apply an intercultural mindset to communicate flexibly and sensitively in a range of multicultural and multilingual situations

- Evaluate new and familiar cultural situations with an understanding of how others might react to your preferences and behaviour, enabling you to respond positively and empathetically

- Engage confidently and effectively with challenging intercultural situations
Who is the course for?

This course is for anyone who is a proficient English speaker and would like to improve their intercultural competence as they build or advance their careers.

This includes young people interested in making a difference, community organisations – particularly in the creative and social enterprise sectors – with a desire to form international connections, and employers wanting their staff to work effectively with people from cultural backgrounds different to their own.