4.4 THE ALBATROSS ROLE-PLAY ACTIVITY

he situation depicted in the picture and its related explanation are inspired by a famous role-play game first presented by Donald Batchelder and Elisabeth Warner (Beyond Experience: the experimental approach to cross-cultural education, Experiment Press, 1979) and widely known as “Albatross”. The activity is often proposed during pre-departure training for outgoing volunteers, training for workcamp coordinators, seminars on cross-cultural volunteering. Here you can find more details on the activity and its instructions. 

To conclude this section, here are some fun facts and a video, referring to typical cultural gestures and habits that might appear bizarre in our first encounter with the culture: