10/19/19; Week 5: Response to “Cultural Miscommunication”

This week, in my TESOL course, we are learning about teaching and assessing cultural differences.  As part of our assignments, we’ve watched two videos: a lesson by professor Ivers from BYU-Idaho concerning Cultural Miscommunication and some advertisements from HSBS about cultural differences.  In the lesson, professor Ivers says that miscommunication can cause a lot of difficulties and it’s always a big possibility.  He then talks about some cultural characteristics of people from Latin America, Japan, German, India, etc.  He also says how facial expressions and gestures differ from culture to culture.  In the HSBS ads, we can see many cultural differences that may cause miscommunication such as personal space, gestures, gifts, table manners.  The company talks about the importance of local knowledge when doing business.                                                                        Local knowledge is crucial when doing business.  But it is also important when you are living abroad, visiting a country as a tourist, etc.  The more we know the culture of a country, the more we are prepared to avoid conflicts due to cultural differences.  It is important to highlight that each country or even state in a country has its own culture.  For example, people outside Latin America tend to look at it as one single thing.  However, Latin America consists of 13 dependencies and 20 countries.  Most of the countries speak Spanish.  However, there are countries where French is spoken.  In Brazil, we speak Portuguese.  Although there are similarities among these countries, each one has its own culture.  A simple situation that happened to my aunt can illustrate a small cultural difference between Brazil and Argentina.  My aunt is Brazilian and moved to Argentina two years ago.  One month later, some sisters from Church told her they would visit her in the afternoon.  She waited the whole afternoon but the sisters did not show up.  Finally, the sisters arrived at 6:30 p.m. My aunt asked them about the time and they realized that in Argentina  6:30 p.m. is considered afternoon while in Brazil it is considered evening.                                                 Cultural awareness is so important that is named among the 10 most important skills for the future workforce by the Institute for the Future.  In the article “Why is cultural awareness important?”, it is stressed that “being culturally aware is not about compromising your own culture or sacrificing your values or identity for ‘another’s’.  It is simply about helping us understand how we can best adapt our approaches, thoughts and decisions to ensure we create positive outcomes in cross-cultural interactions.  It is about respecting others’ cultures as well as our own.”                 (https://www.commisceo-global.com/blog/why-is-cultural-awareness-important)  In a school scenario, this skill is essential for both teachers and students.  Cultural awareness certainly promotes respect, tolerance, positive communication, greater cohesion and synergy.  Since this competency is so important in our world today, I’d like to see in the comments some suggestions on how to improve our students’ cultural awareness and avoid cultural miscommunication.