Abstract:

The scientific paper has as main goal to present the achievements of a pilot research aiming at revealing the importance of the intercultural sensitivity for a better social inclusion in a multicultural environment created by the global knowledge economy, as well as the benefits of the blended learning. The investigation was conducted within a research project: e-Multicult (“Educational portal for the interactive learning of foreign languages in the perspective of the insertion in a multicultural environment”), financed under the national budget for research and innovation, which aims at creating an educational portal for foreign languages learning and the development of communication abilities in a multicultural context. The pilot research was structured in two main phases: the first one aimed at investigating the students’ and adults’ intercultural sensitivity, for those persons interested in foreign languages learning, and the second one had as main goal to test the pilot educational unit and to evaluate the participants’ perception on the pilot module implementation.

The first phase of the pilot research had as target the persons’ perception on intercultural sensitivity and on the communication ways in a multicultural environment, articulating the direct involved people’s perception with the perception of the people who expect to work/live in a multicultural environment. The survey was organized both online and on the site and involved more than 150 persons. The results were analyzed and contributed to the design of the pilot learning module according to the students’ views.

The second phase aimed at testing the pilot module and to reveal the students’ and trainers’ perception, in order to refine the educational model and its implementation, using a blended learning system.

The scientific paper illustrates the results of the surveys and the main conclusions of the pilot research focusing on the intercultural sensitivity, as success factor of the global knowledge economy.

Keywords:

Multicultural environment, intercultural dialogue, intercultural sensitivity, pilot research.