Three
strategies that I could use to communicate more effectively are first
know that there are perceptual barriers. “ Successful intercultural
communication requires mindfulness, being respectful of others, and
maintaining an accurate perception of the situation.” (O'Hair, D.
& Wiemann, M. 2012) When I take this information that is in the
text and apply it to communicating in an everyday situation there
will be times that I do not agree and I will have to hold my tongue,
respecting the culture of another person.
“
Stereotyping is the act of fitting individuals into an existing
schema without adjusting the schema appropriately; it involves
organizing information about groups of people into catergories so
that you can generalize about their attitudes, behavior, skills,
morals, and habits.” (O'Hair, D. & Wiemann, M. 2012) I think
that when we communicate with people we first must realize that
everyone stereotypes, this is a natural instinct. As it says in the
text some stereotypes are positive as well as negative. Our jobs as
Educators is to look at families and coworkers as individuals and try
to look beyond this. Because this will lead eventually to prejudice.
When we are thinking about or examining preconceived situations in
our everyday life that have already happened or assume are going to
cause a situation, it is really easy to make snap judgments. In order
to become an effective communicator we must come to the conclustion
of a problem without gathering the information first to solve it or
at least listen to all sides of the story.
I The
biggest problem I have personally with communicating is that if
someone I am trying to speak to doesn't speak the language, I will
talk slower and pick up the accent. If I make the assumption if
someone doesn't have enough intelligence to follow simple directions
(this would be anyone) it is really hard for me to hear their side of
the story when something goes wrong. These are things I need to work
on myself.
References
O'Hair,
D. & Wiemann, M. (2012) Real Communication; An Introduction
Bedford/St. Martins; Boston*NewYork
3 comments:
Jennifer,
I admire the fact that you can bite your tongue and show respect. I do that each day because, after all, just because I think my culture is dominant, in reality, a person's own culture is what is dominant to them. What is acceptable or unacceptable in one person's culture may be opposite within anothers. We must always remain respectful and allow families to be proud of their culture.
Good post, thank you!!
I also have that problem of picking up the accent and talking slower or in m ore of a broken English thinking this would help. Instead it makes things worse . for they are understanding me just fine it is just difficult for them to rely it in English as it is difficult for me to relay it in Spanish. I believe this is humiliating for them when I do this, and embarrassing for me..
Jennifer,
I just wanted to say, I love how you opened up the blog with the reference to Romeo and Juliet. While it is one of my favorites of Shakespeare, it does demonstrate how difficult it can be for two people of different cultures to communicate.
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