Cross-Cultural Students in the Classroom

 

02/15/2022

Week 7 Response: “Cross-Cultural Students in the Classroom”

ESL teachers will almost certainly be in a situation where they have cross-cultural students in their classroom. This could mean that the students come from a different culture than the teacher, or different cultures than each other. Whatever the combination, these differences will also, almost definitely, cause misunderstandings. One example that stood out to me was about asking questions in class. In the US this is seen as a good thing. Students who ask questions are interested in learning, they are engaged in the lesson and seeking to improve. Brother Ivers pointed out that in many Asian cultures, asking questions would be seen as a sign of disrespect to the teacher. They would see asking questions as a sign that the teacher isn’t doing their job well enough. This one difference could cause a lot of problems in an American/Asian cross-cultural classroom. Maybe because I grew up with an American paradigm I am biased, but I really do think that asking questions is a good thing. As an ESL teacher, I would want to impress on my students to not be afraid to ask questions.

Interestingly, I am not planning on teaching English as a second language, however. My plans include teaching, but I want to teach English literature in high school. This lesson still made me think, though, about my future teaching experience. When Brother Ivers talked about some of the ways American students are seen as rude and disrespectful, it brought up some of the fears I have about teaching high school students. They are famous for being rude! Sometimes I think that teenagers have their own cultural paradigms. So maybe when I become a teacher I can look at it that way and just try to understand their cultural differences better.

Comments

  1. Roman AguilarFebruary 18, 2022 at 10:38 AM

    Hi Amber, it seems to me that high school-age students can be rude in many countries, it is an age of many changes. For me, it is a great challenge to be a teacher of students of that age, although I really enjoyed teaching young people in the church, where the environment is very different from that at school. I congratulate you on your vocation!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lilian PerezFebruary 19, 2022 at 3:40 PM

    Hi Amber.
    I found it interesting that you and I approached the same about asking questions in the classroom. I know some Brazilian children who study in the United States and the culture impacts them a lot when they are at school. Learning about culture will help you even if it is to teach in high school.
    Great post!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Culture and Psychology

  02/19/2022 Week 7 Response: “Culture and Psychology” Psychology is so much more than synapses and nerve endings. Psychological health can be affected by many, many factors like genetics, environment, injury, abnormalities, and culture. Because different cultures have different paradigms, the extent to which one fits into or follows these paradigms can impact their psychological well-being. As we have learned, cultural rules define what it means to be “normal” or “not normal”. Whether these rules are rational or irrational, it doesn’t matter, they can be a driving force behind how members of that culture feel about themselves. Brother Ivers mentioned the problem of anorexia. In some cultures, thinness is highly valued. This cultural rule could cause someone who isn’t thin to have low self-esteem and may lead to anorexia. This same person, raised in a different culture, might not develop any psychological issues at all. Brother Ivers explains this as the conflict between the cu...
Read more

Personal Space Differences

  02/12/2022 Week 6 Response: “Personal Space Differences” Personal space and all of its implications is a really fascinating topic to me. As an American raised in the western state of Oregon, I probably have a relatively large personal space bubble. I didn’t grow up in a large crowded city, but a smaller town with quite a bit of space. So, my cultural paradigm dictates a large personal space. I also think that while most of our spatial paradigms are determined by our culture at large, some are also determined by our smaller family culture. Some people are comfortable being more familiar at lower levels of relationships. For example, I have a co-worker who is what I call a “hugger”; he likes to greet with a hug. Once I realized that’s how he is, I was ok with it and I will hug him, but it’s not something I would be comfortable with initiating. Here is a funny example of personal space and ownership. My mom has a certain spot on a certain bench at church that she has staked out ...
Read more

Differences in Emotional Expressivity

  Week 6 Response: “Differences in Emotional Expressivity” Emotional expressivity is the extent to which a person outwardly shows their emotions. It could include obvious things like laughing, crying, or screaming. People also express emotions with things like hand gestures, eye contact, or facial expressions. Or, emotional expressivity could be as straightforward as telling someone right out what you are feeling. I think it’s interesting that one doesn’t have to be consciously aware of the emotions they are experiencing in order to express it. While we do have some conscious control over our emotional expressions, sometimes they come out without our control. Another factor of emotional expressivity is the cultural paradigms we learn. Brother Ivers talked about how different cultures will fall along a scale of emotional expressivity. On the low end, people will hold emotions in and not show them. On the high end of the scale, people will very outwardly show their emotions. He gav...
Read more