Propuesta de un protocolo de acogida para fomentar las habilidades interculturales de las familias que reciben estudiantes internacionales de intercambio de la UDCA

Abstract

This research is framed as a part of the field of Spanish as a Foreign Language Studies (ELE) and focuses on fostering intercultural skills of host families that receive international students from the University of Applied and Environmental Sciences (UDCA). The objective of this paper is to propose material that provides a tool for host families, a hosting protocol, that promotes intercultural skills and serves as an intercultural guide. For this, it is intended to discover the cultural shocks that occur in the middle of the process of staying in the foster home; thus, to promote the usage of intercultural mediation strategies that allow a better coexistence between the hosts and guests. This project is labeled as qualitative research which belongs to the field of Applied Linguistics since a material is created to treat, understand and mediate cultural shocks. Also, it provides a series of stages to carry out a hosting process. The research instruments used along this paper are surveys and interviews. Initially, a survey is made to determine if there are cultural clashes between students and hosts. As a result of the survey, it is found that these clashes between the two parties do indeed occur and are probably the most recurrent. From this point, an interview is carried out to identify and classify the types of cultural shocks. Subsequently, once the information is obtained, a self-managed didactic material is designed that seeks to solve the needs found in the interview. The design of the material has as theoretical references the proposal of Jolly Bolitho in his route of creation of materials (quoted in Tomlinson, 2011).