THE BENEFITS OF E-LEARNING FOR DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND CROSS-CULTURAL AWARENESS IN THE 21ST CENTURY MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

Abstract

The following theoretical paper evinces the benefits of e-learning for developing the engineering students' communication skills and cross-cultural awareness in order to enable them to successfully live and work in our multicultural 21st century society. The complex character of social relations in our globalized multicultural society, marked by diversity and sensitivity to respecting certain values, codes and etiquettes, urges the teachers of foreign languages in a technical university to focus on developing the engineering students' knowledge and understanding of other cultural values, rules of communication and conduct, stimulating their interest in brushing up on the studied foreign language for a successful future career. In order to attain this objective, the paper attempts to demonstrate that traditional English language courses and seminars in a technical university must be complemented with e-learning. The main argument is that our society has become too complex and sensitive to communication approaches and requires teachers and students to pay more attention to the appropriate ways of coping with cultural differences regarding the manners of communication and behaviour. The paper evinces the following benefits of e-learning: enabling the students to obtain more information tips for successfully approaching different cross-cultural communication issues when meeting foreign interlocutors in a multicultural environment, and enhancing their foreign language knowledge and creativity through provocative tasks. Groups of students of different nationalities in a technical university will be assigned a series of e-learning tasks urging them to demonstrate their knowledge and creativity in order to promote their cultural values on their blogs, to put forth and enlarge upon their national etiquette, writing detailed cultural tips for foreigners visiting their country. Thus, e-learning enables the engineering students to acknowledge cross-cultural differences in order to build long-term professional relationships across cultures. Moreover, it also keeps us to be up-to-date with the latest communication issues we can encounter in our society. Therefore, the paper will enlarge upon some necessary e-learning skills for developing the students' knowledge of a foreign language and for acknowledging cross-cultural differences. Building on the students' creativity through e-learning tasks, we prepare them for coping with a complex society wherein knowledge and understanding of cross-cultural differences in order to achieve unity in diversity must be our specific and overriding objective.