Cultural intelligence is a person's ability to adapt when interacting with others from different cultures. Here's how to improve it with mobile learning!
What is cultural intelligence?
Cultural intelligence is a relatively recent concept from the United States and popularized by Christopher Early and Soon Ang in a 2003 book entitled Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures.
Halfway between psychology, cognitive sciences and cultural anthropology, cultural intelligence highlights the concept of Cultural Quotient (QC) which determines a person's ability to use their intelligence in a foreign cultural context and to adapt their behavior to it. It is now recognized as one of the essential skills to acquire when one has the ambition to work in a company with an international dimension and when one is required to manage people from different cultures.
How to develop cultural intelligence?
According to David Livermore, it is possible to develop cultural intelligence by working on the following QC skills.
- Enthusiasm: corresponds to a person's confidence in their ability to evolve effectively in a variety of cultural situations.
- Knowledge: include a person's understanding of similarities and differences between cultures.
- The strategy: how a person understands and takes into account cultural differences.
- The action: a person's ability to adapt verbal and non-verbal behavior to different cultures.
People with high QC combine these four abilities. While it is possible to take a test to measure your QC, keep in mind that it is difficult to assign a fair score to this skill and that it develops throughout one's life.
Mobile learning to improve cultural intelligence training
As a cultural intelligence trainer, you can improve your training by exploiting the possibilities of microlearning.
Leaving the classroom
Cultural intelligence courses can be dense in information and skills to acquire. When it comes to knowledge, such as important definitions, examples, examples, rules of thumb and case studies, the classic mistake is to present it in the form of lectures or Powerpoint. Learners can easily be overwhelmed, bored, frustrated, or uncomfortable in a classroom situation past the surprise and benefit of discovery.
By cutting up this dense material and distributing it to the mobile, it is possible to alleviate the burden of classroom training. The face-to-face training time saved thanks to Mobile learning can then be used for face-to-face training times and more effective activities.
Divide the modules
To avoid undermining the learner's patience and resistance when faced with difficult subjects, it is possible to divide learning modules into more “digestible” sub-parts. We then talk about micro-learning, with content that allows learners to progress at their own pace and come back to subjects that they find difficult.
Learners are then free to explore the topics they are struggling with at their own pace. This approach lends itself particularly well to mobile learning, with short learning sessions but also the possibility of completing a module in the location of your choice.
Offer a personalized learning pace
Enabling learners to progress at their own pace is one of the keys to good learning. Modules delivered by mobile must complement the current content and above all maintain the link between the training team and the learners.. Processes such as gamification (trophies, badges, unlocking new modules) can help the learner feel emotionally secure and measure their progress.
