Module 1: Lesson 4 - Culture Flashcards
What is culture?
Culture can sometimes be understood as being limited to nationality, however, it is a much broader term that could also encompass religion, gender, sexual orientation, political beliefs, and even aspects such as food and fashion.
Large corporations, such as Google or Apple, often place a lot of importance on creating an organizational culture in order to create an atmosphere of unity, teamwork, and cooperation.
What is intercultural awareness?
Intercultural awareness refers to understanding your own culture and how it affects the ways in which you interact with those of other cultures. It also encompasses your perception and understanding of other cultures.
Intercultural awareness implies taking into account cultural differences when communicating across cultures in order to avoid misunderstandings or conflict.
Why is intercultural awareness important for a BE teacher?
- Language in culture: it is essential to understand the role that students’ languages play in their daily lives. Understanding the associations that each language has for your students will help you to adapt your classes to their needs and aid you in further motivating them.
- Native language influence: By understanding the root of some errors and misunderstandings, Business English teachers can adapt their class content to target these problem areas.
- Communicative competence: understanding your students’ culture will help you to guide them in navigating the “new” cultures they are encountering.
- Cultural dimensions: When asking students to participate in class, it might be necessary to consider the degree of uncertainty avoidance or the emphasis placed on individualism or collectivism in their culture.
- Avoid problems: In cultures with a high degree of power difference, it may be seen as highly inappropriate to spend time with your students outside of class, while in other cultures, it might be the norm.
Name 2 approaches to teaching BE.
The Culture-General Approach
The Culture-Specific Approach
What is meant by:
The Culture-General Approach?
- It focuses on understanding what culture is and encourages learners to broaden their horizons by considering how culture could affect other people’s perspective.
- It provides a framework for considering attitudes and beliefs associated with different cultures and contrasting them with your own, helping you to interact with people from all kinds of backgrounds.
- Considering the multi-cultural components of most workplaces, this is often the preferred approach for dealing with multiple cultures.
What is meant by:
The Culture-Specific Approach?
- It focuses on one particular culture with which students are going to interact.
- This may be the case if a company’s sole market or supplier is based in one country, for example, or if the workforce is predominantly of one culture.
- This can be very helpful, particularly for learners who are relocating to another country, and need to be aware of cultural differences that they may have to deal with.
What are some cultural dimensions / perspectives to keep in mind when teaching BE?
- High-context vs low-context cultures
- Monochronic vs polychronic
- High power distance vs low power distance
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Femininity vs masculinity
- Long-term vs short-term orientation
Explain high-context vs low-context cultures.
High-context cultures are those where ideas are often not explicitly explained or detailed. Rather, the context and non-verbal communication are prioritized. They often place a high value on building long-term relationships and verbal agreements may be more common than written contracts. Instructions are usually not explicit and there is more flexibility implied.
Low-context cultures will generally give explicit and detailed instructions, making it clear how things should be done. Detailed written agreements are the norm, and written communication such as e-mail and SMS is preferred for clarifying any doubts.
Explain monochronic vs polychronic cultures.
Monochronic cultures view time as being linear and tend to organize events such as meetings or product development, with one event following the other in a logical order. Monochronic work cultures tend to focus on individuals completing individual tasks, and therefore individual accomplishments.
In polychronic cultures, people tend to manage multiple activities at the same time. In polychronic work cultures, many people often work on multiple activities simultaneously, leading to a strong emphasis on teamwork and interaction.
Explain high power distance vs low power distance cultures.
In high power distance cultures, people are expected to show respect to those in higher positions. Employees, for example, might find it difficult to approach their supervisor about an issue and are expected to follow instructions without question.
In contrast, low power distance cultures typically have more equality among their members. Therefore, managers are more likely to consult with their subordinates and employees are able to approach their supervisors more informally.
What is meant by high and low uncertainty avoidance?
Uncertainy avoidance deals with the degree to which the members of a culture feel uncomfortable or threatened by ambiguous situations.
In cultures with high uncertainty avoidance, there is a strong preference for written rules, clearly defined roles, and a need to work hard all the time.
In low uncertainty avoidance cultures, there is more flexibility and risk-taking, and workers tend to work hard when the situation demands it.
Explain femininity vs masculinity cultures.
Cultures which are considered masculine tend to have the maximum distance between what is expected of men and women. Characteristics associated with masculine cultures include competitiveness, assertiveness, and material success.
Conversely, feminine cultures tend to have more overlapping between the roles of men and women in society. Feminine cultures tend to place more emphasis on interpersonal relationships and quality of life.
Explain long-term orientation vs short-term orientation cultures.
Cultures which are considered to have a short-term orientation tend to place more emphasis on the concepts of rights and values, and are often more religious and/or nationalistic than their long-term orientation counterparts. Workers from a short-term oriented culture might oversell their abilities or be unwilling to compromise, which is seen as a weakness.
Cultures with a long-term orientation tend to emphasize virtues and obligations more, while modesty and thrift are considered virtuous characteristics.
Long-term orientation workers would be unimpressed by STO’s lack of modesty and flexibility.
Share some classroom activities to explore intercultural awareness.
- Analyze similarities between themselves and peers.
- Define how they see themselves (or company) in cultural perspectives.
- Penpal or letter-writing options (email and letter-writing skills).
- Critical incidents: example of something that’s happened.
- Use emails from different departments and/or countries.
- Analyze adverts from all over the world to look at language used.
- TED Talks for starting points for discussions.
- Use online virtual travel experiences to explore inspiring locations different from yours.
