DIGITAL LIBRARY
THE PRESENTATION OF SOME FRENCH COMPANIES WITH SUBSIDIARIES IN SEVERAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR INTERCULTURAL EXCHANGES BETWEEN NON-SPECIALIST STUDENTS IN FRENCH
"Ovidius" University of Constanta (ROMANIA)
About this paper:
Appears in: EDULEARN13 Proceedings
Publication year: 2013
Pages: 1378-1384
ISBN: 978-84-616-3822-2
ISSN: 2340-1117
Conference name: 5th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies
Dates: 1-3 July, 2013
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Abstract:
My article proposes an analysis of how the students engaged in a cross-border European project have chosen to present a company according to their choice. The requirement was the same for all students and the project participants were able to follow it broadly, but we wanted to examine, firstly, which were the criteria in choosing the respective enterprise. In our research, the students had as starting point the theoretical objectives covered in the study of specialised foreign language that they applied using, as support, the indicated Internet sites. What we are trying to emphasize is, on the one hand, the description of the company in terms of geographical location, strategies applied, turnover, branches in the world, and, on the other hand, the way the presentation highlights the educational context of each team, but also the socio-cultural implications.
Despite a unique guide for each of the three teams, one can see that the presentations are different from one team to another, due to linguistic and cultural differences precisely. The analyses of the companies are for the students in Economics a sequence contained in the comprehensive understanding with a strong impact on the business practices which they feel attracted to, even for a situational simulation.
Linguistically, we focus on vocabulary acquisition, specific structures, fixed expressions related to various business profiles. In terms of cultural objectives, we proposed, through virtual visits to Lafarge (Medgidia), Danone (Varna), Carrefour (Istanbul), to offer the students from the three participant universities the use of the daily communication code, but also the business code designed as a means of understanding within the enterprise, as well as a set of linguistic skills specific to each country. We note that students have also been suggested other companies like Vodafone, Rompetrol, Dobrogea and their preference was made by their freely expressed choice.
Keywords:
International research project, intercultural objectives, multinationals, chat conversations.