E-Kaalund
Elisabeth Ingeborg Kaalund
Get in touch: admin@e-kaalund.dk
Services
How do international employees and their families navigate Danish society?
Introductory course on language and culture for groups of internationals entering into the Danish society. Classes from 4 individuals. Classes in Danish as a foreign language.
Talks and workshops on intercultural competence, third culture families, the purposes of language learning and strategies for communication and interaction.
Is my staff interculturally competent and prepared for international colleagues?
Introductory course for public and private companies assessing reception readiness and preparing the company's flow for the integration of international employees into the workforce in a socially and economically sustainable way.
Talks and workshops on intercultural competence and the purposes of language learning. Language classes in English, German, and Spanish
How do I make my company attractive to international employees?
Readiness assessment and action plan to prepare for intake of international employees. The action plan may include recommendations for employee development courses and contact establishment to facilitate the transition to an inclusive multicultural workplace.
Guidance on recruitment and relocation services.
How do I assess the competences my new international employees have? What can they do?
Competence assessment transscending the official educational certificates irrespective of language barriers. Evaluation of soft skills and practical skills in a formalised interview that provides real insights into your international employee's skill set.
Charting the skill set for employee optimisation via individual in person interviews.
How do I integrate the resources of my international employees into my company in the best possible way?
Consulatancy in idea generation in terms of the best possible way to integrate the employee's skill set into your work force.
Guidance for HR and management in implementation of the employee optimisation.
Premium personal executive service
Language consultancy and performance for individuals in management positions in negotiation situations where the wording of the contract matters. Services offered in Danish, English, and German.
Bespoke service designed for relocation of individuals in management positions and their families.
Location | Language | People
These three elements have an increasing impact on a world that is moving rapidly through a digital evolution. Through ample experience and the studies of the foundations of these three pillars, I can build the bridges and understanding where genuine connection to another human being and a cause seem to have been lost.
This will be useful in the course of creating contacts and contracts internationally on behalf of your cause, teaching foreign or domestic language and cultural insights in Denmark, or connecting with/ onboarding a new employee or a group of employees from diverse multicultural backgrounds.
Contact me for further consultancy in these areas.
Elisabeth I. Kaalund
Language Consultant, Instructor in Danish as a Foreign Language, Senior Lecturer in English and Multilingualism, MA of Translation and Interpretation English/Danish (cand.ling.merc.), Bilingual with German, BA in Business Languages English and Spanish, etc...
Experience is building
My first talk as an independent language consultant was given for Pasaka, a Lithuanian heritage language school located in Vilnius teaching children their roots through the Lithuanian language.
The families requesting these services are located all over the world and the teachers are trained in different areas of expertise in Lithuania. These different areas of expertise are necessary when you teach learners online from the age of 2. My talk inspired a multicultural approach incoporating the learners' different cultural contexts in the online classes to reach the common goal of learning Lithuanian.
The didactical coordinator happened to be one of the hundreds of international teacher students that I had trained in my 14 years as a lecturer at the teacher education programme in South Denmark. While most stay in Denmark to add value to the Danish public and private school staff, some return to their places of origin or spread the practices of Danish teaching didactics around the globe from French Polynesia to Canada - and Lithuania.
Not only having lived in different countries and experienced different ways of living, but also my many years as a volunteer in the Danish Refugee Council and Red Cross' local boards, have provided me with a foundation that seemed beneficial to "onboard" the international students into the very culturally specific business of teaching according to the fundamental philosophy of Grundtvig in the institutional pillar of Danish society, the folkeskole.
I teach languages and how to teach languages to all ages, as I know quite a few, - and I teach communicatively. People familiar with the business would ask: well, whichever else way would you teach nowadays. True. The functionality and pragmatics of the language, for me, is unavoidably linked to sociolinguistics and identity construction in the culture you are trying to navigate in a new language.
To deconstruct the pathways through and towards a common ground and not lose your integrity and roots along the way, is pivotal. It is as vital in learning a foreign language in a learning community as a multilingual person as in moving to a new country for work.
Only by keeping your integrity intact, believing in and being loyal to the cause you represent, can you excel in establishing cooperation and reaching your goals in negotiation domestically and across borders. That is unequivocally problematic when you are challenged by its foundation - the language of the mentioned negotiation. Languages and, of course, the command of them have let me negotiate many a valuable contract in my early years of work experience.
In all of my fields of experience, I am offering my expertise as your consultant.
Jeg lod mig friste af et flygtigt opslag på facebook, for mit feed er fuldt af fristelser eftersom jeg i snart 15 år har haft facebookgrupper til at dele forskellige temaer i fremmedsprogsundervisningen: sprogdidaktik og praktiske fif til klasseværelset, lingvistik og sprogbrug, interkulturel kompetence og litteratur og multilingualisme og multikulturelitet. Jeg har fyldt dem med sjove og alvorlige posts, som jeg falder over hver dag - ikke fordi jeg skal, men fordi jeg ikke kan lade være. Man er vel nørd.
Om ikke andet, så lod jeg mig friste til at købe en bog om interkulturel kommunikation, som jeg ikke havde på hylden i mit bibliotek endnu, og jeg blev nu ikke skuffet. Det er selvfølgelig altid en succesoplevelse, når man genkender referencer, men samtidigt også allerede bliver reflekterende bare ved at læse litteraturhenvisningerne efter hvert kapitel.
Jeg blev så inspireret at jeg greb 13 af de bøger jeg havde brugt i mit seneste forløb i interkulturel kompetence, og det inkluderende ikke engang litteraturdelen af undervisningen... men disse 13 bøger havde alle berøringsflade med denne nyindkøbte bog.
Jeg skriver "nyindkøbte", fordi jeg faktisk er en smule bagud - den er faktisk udgivet i 2023. Bogen hedder "The Cambridge Introduction to Intercultural Communication" og er af Guido Rings og Sebastian M. Rasinger fra Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Bogen er altså lige en smule yngre end de virkeligt gode grundbøger vi har brugt på læreruddannelsen fra 2020 (Verdensborgeren og den interkulturelle læring, Risager K. og Svarstad Lone K., Samfundslitteratur; og Teaching and Learning English Interculturally, Dypedahl M. and Lund R. E, Cappellen Damm Akademisk). Jeg vil dog gerne slå et slag for at denne her kan bruges, i hvert fald delvist, i de fleste EMI studier der berører interkulturelitet - både i læreruddannelsen, professionsuddannelser, diplomkurser og akademiuddannelser.
Grundbøgerne har jeg, som de fleste jo gør, altid suppleret. Men der hvor mit greb i bogreolen måske har adskilt sig en smule, var i den mere eller mindre bevidste ignorans af forskningstraditioner i forskellige institutionssammenhæng under mottoet "al viden skal ud til folket" - uanset om det er faglitteratur udgivet af CBS, forskningsuniversiteter verden over, eller professionshøjskoler. Jeg nævner det, fordi denne her bog i mine hænder, giver lidt samme fornemmelse af at dele aspekter indenfor interkulturel kommunikation for folket med folket og gennem folket i, men også i mere end skole- og undervisningskonteksten, dvs. udenfor "laboratoriet".
Vi har selvfølgelig referencer til Byram, Kramsch, Liddicoat, Deardorff et al., men også moderne adapterede takes på Hofstede, Trompenaar og Bennett's DMIS. Det fascinerende er referencerne som helt bogstaveligt bevæger sig væk fra det etnocentriske og hen imod en samling af input der rent faktisk spænder fra Samierne til Afrikas stepper og asiatiske udfordringer i interaktion. Der er rig eksemplificering omend sproget er avanceret og måske kan udfordre studerende - men det synes jeg jo bare er fantastisk i en undervisningssituation at dekonstruere i et læringsfællesskab.
Det kan godt være at der er tre ud af de 18 kapitler der opleves meget specifikke. I anvendelsesdelen af bogen er der et kapitel om intercultural business communication, interkulturel kommunikation i sundhedsvæsenet, og interkulturel kommunikation i forsvarssammenhæng. De er enormt oppe i tiden i forhold til her-og-nu relevans og der er bestemt et stort behov for disse færdigheder i den danske virkelighed.
Inden røsterne nu rømmer sig i forhold til relevansen af disse tre kapitler (og dermed hele bogen) i skoleverdenen, vil jeg lige gøre det tydeligt at jeg mener når jeg siger, at jeg ikke vil nægte nogen af mine målgrupper i første eller anden orden fif til at navigere på en vej i verden de vælger – om det er børn der vokser op og vælger professionen sygeplejerske eller lærere, der bestemmer sig for at skifte spor. Det er brugbart for alle at vide noget grundlæggende om interkulturel borgerkommunikation, forretningskommunikation, eller forsvarskommunikation for at være dannet og verdensborger, der forstår sit ståsted. Ligesom det er brugbart for alle at vide noget om brugen af interkulturel storytelling (til f.eks. klasseværelset eller borgerens oplevelsesrejse igennem sundhedssystemet og content creation) og interkulturel kommunikation i den digitale sfære.
Jeg vil bruge den, når jeg kan.
Vi har ikke råd til at undervise interkulturelt med skyklapper.