Intercultural Communication in Team Work

Course information

Learning outcomes

The overall learning outcome of this course is to improve the student's transferable skills to work in a diverse team in various professional contexts. To achieve this goal, the course provides practical knowledge on teamwork communication. On successful completion of the course, students will be able to achieve:

• an ability to understand a range of social actions relating to teamwork processes
• an ability to illustrate key elements of teamwork communication such as different turn-taking strategies
• an ability to identify key sources of intercultural misunderstanding and miscommunication in a diverse team
• an ability to develop communication strategies to prevent and negotiate intercultural misunderstanding and miscommunication in a diverse team
• an ability to adjust communication styles under different work contexts and audiences in a diverse team

Content

Potential topics to be covered in the course are as follows:

• 'task-related' and 'socio-emotional' activities in teamwork and both team leaders and members' roles in facilitating those activities
• key elements in teamwork interaction (e.g. team meetings) including overlaps, interruptions, backchannels, latching and use of questions
• the different degrees of directness and involvement in teamwork communication and how to effectively adjust the degrees in various contexts
• communication accommodative behaviours and practices that can be used when differences in communication styles are recognised in a team

Teacher

Yoonjoo Cho

Study material

Online materials provided by teacher through MyCourses

Workload

30-36 h small group instruction + 41-45 h independent study

Prerequisites

Recommended prerequisites: LC-0610 Intercultural Communication

Evaluation

- Participation 15%

- Active Discussion 25%

- Individual task 30%

- Team project and presentation 30%

Teaching time and location

The teaching time and the location of the course can be found at Sisu information system

1. The link leads to Completion methods tab of the course page
2. From the top of the page (Version drop-down menu), check that academic year 2025-2026 is selected  

3. From the blue bar, click Lecture and open the Groups and teaching times tab to see the teaching time and the location of the course. Exam times can be seen by clicking Exam.
    

   Exam instructions at the Open University

The teacher has four (4) weeks to grade the exam submissions starting from the exam date.

Further information

Equivalences to other courses: LC-0611
 

Online learning environment for the course  

MyCourses online learning environment is a tool for both students and teachers for communication and managing everyday course work. You need an Aalto User ID to log in to the course's MyCourses workspace and participate in teaching.

Digital workspace of the course:
MyCourses

More details on completing the course will be available at MyCourses closer to the start of the course.

Registration and course fee

Registration for Open University courses is done via the link below: 
Course registration

Registration for this course starts on 26.1.2026 at 9.00  
Registration for this course ends on 19.2.2026 at 23.59

It is not possible to register before the registration period has started or after it has ended.

The number of participants is limited to 4. The course will be organized if there are at least 10 participants.

This course is organized by the Aalto University Language Centre

The course fee is paid upon registration for each course at a time and it is binding. Familiarize yourself with registration and payment rules as well as other guidelines for students:
Registration, payments and rules

Activating Aalto ID and Multifactor Authentication

You can activate your Aalto User ID the day after the registration and you should activate it no later than the day before the start of the course.
Instructions for activating your Aalto user ID

Once you have activated your Aalto user ID, also enable multifactor authentication. Some of Aalto University's services require multifactor authentication.

Instructions for using Multifactor Authentication