DIGITAL LIBRARY
COMMUNITY - ORIENTED LEARNING – A PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGY TO CULTIVATE THE POSITIVE ALTERITY
Dunarea de Jos University of Galati (ROMANIA)
About this paper:
Appears in: EDULEARN21 Proceedings
Publication year: 2021
Pages: 12431-12437
ISBN: 978-84-09-31267-2
ISSN: 2340-1117
doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2021.2619
Conference name: 13th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies
Dates: 5-6 July, 2021
Location: Online Conference
Abstract:
Problem Statement:
Learning foreign language is one of the most important objectives of European education which is also justified by the actual social and political challenges of the world. Human mobility shows that speaking foreign languages and knowing about the culture and civilisation are not enough to develop some values, attitudes and comportments, like the tolerance, collaboration, solidarity, positive alterity, interculturality. Certainly, speaking a foreign language doesn’t mean having a good communication with people who provide from different cultural spaces. For this reason, all of them are necessary to assure the cultural integration, in general.
In case of the students who choose to learn in a foreign country, this problem is found most frequent. As a consequence, for the cultural integration, the solution can be the combination of learning with the social implication.
In addition, the education in general must prepare the students to be integrated in the multi-ethnic and human reality which presupposes accepting, relating and collaborating with different people.

Purpose of Study:
This paper is a theoretical and methodological approach regarding the foreign students’ cultural and linguistic integration.
Our study starts from the premise that the Community-Oriented Learning (COL) as a modality to assure the good connection with “the real world”, helps the foreign students to better understand and collaborate with people from different social and cultural space.
This paper is based on the argument that the foreign students can be entrusted to learn about culture and civilization and to interact each other having the community as partner.

Research Methods:
Our paper is based on the observations which made during the activities with students. We analyse the results of the work of students in the formal and nonformal activities.

Findings:
The paper proposes some education instruments and techniques which combine the learning goals, personal development and social interaction. The results of research demonstrate that the COL should be an excellent educational strategy if it is correctly applied.
This learning modality gives students experiential opportunities to learn in real world contexts, and develop active social abilities needed to communicate and interact with people in a different cultural space.
Keywords:
Education, culture, communication, learning.