Intercultural Communication: A Cherry on Top of my Erasmus Experience Anna Ryšánková

When I was choosing the courses for my semester in Tallinn, the course “KOI7067.FK Basics of Intercultural Communication” immediately caught my attention. Not entirely knowing what to expect from it, I added it to my study plan. It just felt right – I knew that the whole Erasmus experience would be one big intercultural experience, so a course in intercultural communication sounded like a good idea. And it only took me the first lecture and our first online meeting to confirm that.

The enthusiasm with which Prof. Zabrodskaja introduced the topic and the whole telecollaboration project to us really made me excited for the things to come. And from the first meeting, I loved our little group! Four girls from very different backgrounds – the US, Turkey and Czech Republic. And yet, we clicked right away and agreed on more topics than I would have ever thought. One thing that I’m definitely taking away from this whole collaboration is the fact that our generation really is way more connected all around the world than ever before. Because how else would you explain that we align so much in our values, in our points of view – on all things political, feminist, all things “life”, basically. 

It almost felt as though there wasn’t 8 500 km between us – apart from the time zone difference. It was our running joke to wish the US girls a good morning when we were pretty much falling asleep with our eyes open here in Tallinn. And funnily enough, the time difference was the only thing that tricked us a couple of times – daylight savings, especially. 

Working with the girls was always a joy and our Tuesday meetings and talks were definitely something to look forward to. The assignments I enjoyed working on the most were the first and the last. In the first one, it was so much fun to discover things about each other and put it together in a colorful, creative way. The last one then I enjoyed very much from the linguistic perspective – because I study literature and culture, talking about different idioms and metaphors was super interesting. I think sayings and jokes say a lot about the language and culture – so it was awesome to discover it from so very different points of view.

The aspect of using AI and thinking of how AI could help and enhance intercultural communication was also very interesting – a topic that I never even thought of before. It definitely opened up my eyes to different possibilities on how to use AI in my daily life and I even found new AI tools to work with – generating podcasts with Notebook LM for example is a thing I already incorporated into my study routine! 

All in all, I must say that this course felt like the cherry on top of my Erasmus experience as a whole. During my time here in Tallinn, I met people from so many different parts of the world, from so many different countries and cultures. And add to that being able to work with girls from the US – now I feel like I really have friends all around the world. So – thank you! I feel very grateful for this experience and it will definitely make a great part of my memories about this very interesting semester abroad. 

The header of our very first assignment together – the group profile.