Modes of cross-cultural training: Conceptualizing cross-cultural training as education

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for examining existing intercultural communication training models and to present a multidimensional approach for educating sojourners for experiential learning. The paper differentiates among, orientation, training and education by mapping the goals, the content, and the process approaches used in each. The Intercultural Programming Grid which emerges from this differentiation examines five major programming models based on three aspects which distinguish one model from another: the nature of the goals (cognitive, affective, behavioral), the nature of the content (culture general or culture specific), and the nature of the process (experiential or intellectual). The strengths and limitations of each model are discussed. A multidimensional model is proposed which integrates all the dimensions with the experiential learning cycle.