ИСТИНА

Globalization brings into interaction people and nations. The success of anything done on a global scale requires certain communication skills and intercultural awareness of their participants. Education is challenged to provide training in the theory and practice of cross cultural communication. In this respect ICT are a great asset as they enable us to realize a real communication among representatives of different cultures at a distance, without their leaving the place of their residence. The idea of the ICT-based intercultural project described here rests upon these assumptions. Four universities of CIS countries ( Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia) chose the project work as the one meeting mostly the task of getting their students to be aware of the differences and similarities of various cultures, to be tolerant towards differing cultures and to respect and value their own one. The role of the organizers was to suggest the subject of the project ("The Traditions of Hospitality") and to give some basic instructions concerning its implementation which was completely the responsibility of student groups from the four universities. They were given a free hand in terms of the form of the "final product" which they had to present to each other, so they could use their creativity to the utmost. Some of them made PowerPoint presentations, others preferred to make a short videofilm, or theatrical acting. The format of project work once more proved the verity of the social constructivism theory: students build their new knowledge in an active learning process, they learn how to work in a team, how to process information using critical thinking, how to put forward hypotheses, defend and refute them, how to take personal and joint decisions and how to learn from each other in collaborative practice. The most obvious didactic outcome was motivation of the students, which had risen to its peak by the end of the project: all the participants were eager and determined to proceed with another cultural topic, after having analysed their final results and taken into account their findings to improve the next stage of this joint venture.