This workshop is set to run again during the Spring term – keep an eye out on this website for more information.

On 2^nd December we ran our interactive workshop “The Cultural Game”, held at Highfield campus in the Maths building.

We had a great turnout with around 16 students, home and international, coming to join in the activities (the email we’d sent round with FREE PIZZA in capital letters had clearly done the trick!) The event started with everyone getting to know each other a little, before we split them into small groups and began with the workshops.

The first workshop was mysteriously called “The Culture Card Game”, and after receiving rulesets for a new card game, each group got to work learning the rules together. After it look liked everyone knew more or less what they were doing, we ranked the groups – from the unlucky ‘losers’ table’ up to the smug ‘winners’ table’. The game then became a tournament, with players having to beat their opponents and move up the ranks from the losers’ to the winners’ table by winning games, and going down a rank each time they lost.

From this point onwards everybody had to remain completely silent, which was quite a challenge for some players! We got through however with minimal shushing. About halfway through the tournament it became clear to some that the game wasn’t as straightforward as they had thought. By the time the tournament ended and the winners’ table got a prize and a round of applause, many had figured out that the game had actually been rigged!

The game had been designed to give players firsthand experience of what it’s like to enter a new culture, where the ‘rules’ are different to what you are used to and where you sometimes can’t communicate very easily. We brainstormed ways you might cope with coming into a new situation like this, and started to draw parallels with experiences in our own lives. The discussion went brilliantly with lots of great examples from different members of the group who had lived or travelled to different countries, and there were also a few experiences people had had at university, which was really interesting to hear about.

We then had our pizza break and people got chatting to one another, before starting the next workshop, called ‘What is Intelligence?’ The group was divided into three teams and given an intelligent test. They all did extremely well in the test and were all marked as ‘intelligent’ which was a relief! They were then given another test, based on the native Australian community of the kuuk thayorre, which proved a little more challenging, except for one team who managed to win the quiz and earn themselves a prize. However, again we found out that this team had been given a big advantage. We discussed what role cultural knowledge has in our definition of intelligence, with the group again having some great ideas.

In the end, everybody got a prize, and we finished off the workshop with a big thank you to everyone who came along. Lots of participants commented that they had really enjoyed the event, and were interested in taking part in more workshops and events run by the Intercultural Connections Southampton team, so watch this space!