IE3 Seminar ICC: Lesson 7

5/26/2015

Hi everyone,

I can imagine that you're all very relieved to have finished your mid-term term. I'll try to have all of them marked and returned to you in our lesson next week.

Group Presentations
Before our test, we went through the guidelines for our group presentations. Over the next few weeks, you'll get more information about your presentations. We completed our first task today, which was to choose your topic. The next step is to start your research so that you can prepare and outline.

Homework:
1. Research your presentation topic
2. Blog Comment #
3. Reading pp. 187-212 (ch. 8)

I've made a few changes to the reading schedule. Next week, we'll look at chapter 8 in class and then we'll look at chapters 5 and 6 afterwards. To prepare your outline, you'll need information from chapter 8.

Blog Question #6:

Compared to your ideas about culture before the start of this course, how have your ideas about culture changed during this course?

*Write 150-200 words.
*Use capitalization, punctuation & spelling correctly.
*Submit by Monday, June 1 by 6:00pm.

IE3 Seminar ICC Presentation Guidelines
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11 Comments

IE3S-Sayaka

5/29/2015 12:10:23 pm

My way of thinking about culture has a lot changed through this course. Before the start of this course, I thought I did know about culture, especially because I went abroad a few times and studied with foreign students. There were so many nationalities like German, Italy, China, Ecuador, Arab, and Brazil. There were over 100 students in that school from all around world except the developing countries. I overlooked that matter and I thought that I could get a lot of friends from all over the world. Studying about Cambodia in this course, gradually I noticed that there are much more things I don’t know about culture, and also thought “I want to know more.” Through the research on presentation that we are going to set about next, I would like to get more profit things and know more about culture.

IE3S-Saya

5/29/2015 11:24:04 pm

My idea of culture has changed through this class. One of the reasons is that I’ve never had the chance to think deeply about the true meaning of “culture”. Now, I know that culture has lots of elements and it’s more than just the country’s traditions and customs. There are so many cultures in the world. It is difficult to learn about them because most of us don’t know fully about our own cultures in the first place. At the same time, we tend to have stereotypes, based on our personal value system. Learning other cultures like Cambodia, made me think that some things we think is normal does not always mean the same in other cultures. Also, I thought having interest in other cultures is an important thing when it comes to intercultural communication. I hope I can learn more about ‘culture’ and how it is influential to intercultural communication.

IE3S-Jumpei

5/30/2015 12:39:52 pm

Before taking this class, I attended one of the intercultural communication courses taught by a different teacher. At that class I learned abstractly about intercultural communication, politics, gender problems among the world, values and so on. However taking this class, I was able to learn more specific information about intercultural communication from a different approach. Learning about cultural barriers were one of my favorite topics in class. It definitely raised my awareness against not to be ethnocentrism, anxious, or bear stereotypes and prejudice. I believe this world is made out a lot of stereotypes so taking this class, I thought to be more careful and to think before you act. Also learning about the essences of culture was very interesting. I've never thought about the one word "culture" that much deeply so there were many new discoveries for me, and now I feel more grateful that I belong to the english literature department.

IE3S-Yuma

5/30/2015 11:49:20 pm

My ideas about culture have changed in some ways.Before the start of this course,I took another class about intercultural communication.I also learned many kinds of things about culture in that class.However, in this class,I was able to study some new cultural things.They are all interesting for me. I had a lot of opportunities to think about different cultures from us before.But, for example,I did not know the elements of culture,subculture,subgroup and so on.Though I was born and grew up in Japan,I realized that I didn't understand so much about Japanese culture.When the teacher explained to us the elements of Japanese culture,I was really surprised because most of the things were new for me.So I think i have to study not only other cultures but also our own culture.

IE3S-Takahiro

5/31/2015 01:53:33 pm

Through this class, my idea on culture has greatly changed and my horizons have been broadened a little bit. Before taking this class, I have never thought of what culture is, and never dreamed of that most of what I have known was prejudiced. Nothing to say, I didn’t know that culture have four elements: symbols, heroes, rituals and heroes. And through exchanging letters with Cambodian student, I learned much, which was different from what I knew before. I see that I knew nothing except the fact that I was just prejudiced back then, and now I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. When taking up learning something new, realizing where we stand, what we know or not is essential to start better. Therefore, I think it is now my duty to completely put away my prejudice. However, since in fact much of information around us through newspaper, TV or internet could be strictly censored and always by no means true, and then to understand other cultures exactly require us to discern which is true or not, and we have to be very careful.

IE3S-Manami

5/31/2015 03:32:46 pm

I think my ideas about culture has changed through this course. I have studied abroad and met many people from other countries. This experience made me feel like I knew what culture is. However, I never knew it. I never had a chance to think what culture really is so deeply.
In the course we've got to know what couture is and the truth made me to think more and it was overwhelming. One of the most overwhelming things was about Cambodia. I thought kids in Cambodia don't go to school but they actually do like we do. I think I had a lot of stereotypes and I really need to know much more about culture.

IE3S-Kohei

5/31/2015 03:42:00 pm

I did know some terms of intercultural communication because I had another course about it. However, I did not know so much about them. I could learn more deeply on intercultural communication by this course. In this course, we learned the elements of culture are symbols, rituals, values and heroes. I noticed that thought those point, we could know more deeply about other cultures. By knowing this point of views, I think we can understand the thoughts of people in other cultures so that we can communicate well with them. In my opinion, this is more important that just learning English. We also learned stereotypes and prejudice. I did know these words but I did not know exactly. Having prejudice towards something is not good. Not to have prejudice, we have to learn more about what is prejudice and why it happens. This course also taught us about it. It's an honor for me to take this course and learn about intercultural communication.

IE3S-Kotomi

5/31/2015 04:47:40 pm

Before this course started, I associated the word "culture" with only visible things. For example, fashion, language, literature, and food. Then, I was convinced that I knew most of Japanese culture. But after the class, I was surprised that culture has invisible things: religion, superstition, values or discrimination of colors. My stereotypes about culture were exploded by the class. I was also ashamed that I couldn't explain "honne-tatemae" and "soto-uchi", and there are many elements of culture I didn't know.　Much less, it was difficult to explain them in English. I learned my ignorance, and I should know more about culture in my country. Moreover, I was shocked that the words "wash clothes" have different meanings between Japan and Cambodia; it's a very hard work to wash by hands in Cambodia, while we only turn on a washing machine. I also learned that ordinal things for us sometimes may not be ordinary.

IE3S-Misato

5/31/2015 06:01:14 pm

Through taking the classes, I have realized that culture contains such a lot of elements. When I hear the word culture, my focus was much on the things we easily can see the differences such as cultural artifacts and practices. However we learned things we cannot easily realize, and it was first time for me to learn them,
such as how our perception process are affected by culture, and the way we communicate is different by culture as high-context or low-context. I was really surprised to know about cultural difference on perception because it means two can have totally different thoughts towards same thing. For example, I think many Japanese would think police officers are helpful and hard work, but I heard that police officers in Cambodia are seen as differently.
To know other crude, I learned that we need to know our own culture first and also it is important to not think of our own culture as a center but consider it as one of the cultures.

IE3S-Yumi

5/31/2015 06:40:13 pm

The meaning of “culture” I used to think was just like each country`s customs or something that categorized people into some groups, but taking the classes, I got a deep understanding of culture. One of the lessons that were memorable for me was about the barriers in cultural communication because I always feel anxiety when I speak with people from different countries. But, knowing the fact that most English native speakers actually don’t feel impatient about Japanese speaking English made me think that Japanese tend to do things perfectly and feel ashamed if cannot, and also that we don’t have to do things, speak English perfectly. All the things I have learned in this course are what reveals the reasons for the happenings of my experiences in foreign countries, such as how we communicate differently and how we perceive things differently. So, I could really get interested in each lessons. I became to think I should understand about culture more so that I can feel more confident speaking English.

IE3S-Kentaro

5/31/2015 10:14:22 pm

Before taking this course, I rarely thought of what culture was, but I was able to think about it even more deeply through this course, which made me realize that a culture contained a lot of components in it. Above all, the class on the barriers in intercultural communication was the most interesting for me, since it could be completely applied to my own experience. I feel nervous and anxious whenever I talk to native speakers of English in the language in my daily life. That's because I worry about my English skills too much. When I speak English, I always worry that I would be made fun of by the native speakers listening to my English. However, I realized that it was just a barrier and that I didn't have to worry about it that much after taking this course. I thoroughly forgot that the most important thing was the attitudes to try to convey what I am thinking to others. I'm going to speak English without being afraid of mistakes, keeping in mind that languages are just a tool for intercultural communication.

IE3 Seminar ICC: Lesson 7

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