Interculturalism in the Classroom by Bob Dignen

Interculturalism in the classroom by Bob Dignen

What is culture?
Literally hundreds of definitions of culture can be offered from the pragmatic way people do things around here to the more sociological idea of collective mental programming or shared set of assumptions and behaviours. In fact, culture means different things to different people and is used for different purposes. It is actually less a description of something than a reason for doing something. It’s an approach shared by the oft-quoted Gert Hofstede, although the following is not a quote we often see it in the intercultural literature.
When I have intelligent students in my class, I tell them, “One thing we have to agree on: culture does not exist.” Of course, you have to realize that culture is a construct. Culture is a concept that we made up which helps us understand a complex world, but it is not something tangible like a table or a human being. Gert Hofstede
In others words, culture is less a description out there. It is actually a process of sense-making which can deliver useful (or useless) forms of ‘knowledge’ and new levels of understanding between people. Let’s look at some of these sense-making processes to understand culture.
1. Culture helps makes sense of experience
National culture is frequently invoked by those discussing and analysing their international business experiences.
Germans tend to like technically clear environments. They want to know what the goals of a project are, what resources they have and so on. They need a clear plan. There are people from other countries, perhaps the UK ..., who like to experiment. They have a framework concept and then they start and build up experience, so they work a little bit with uncertainty. Peter Wollmann, Zurich Financial Services The Mindful International Manager pp. 56
Culture, and most commonly national cultural identities, promises to provide an explanation of misunderstanding and miscommunication e.g. the German preference for planning and slow decision-making can be explained by a cultural attitude of wanting to avoid unnecessary risk, so time is taken to decide how to avoid getting it wrong.
The demand for more cultural knowledge – knowing how the Germans, the Koreans, the Americans think and act – is part of this way of thinking. If culture – again national culture – is an explanation for different behaviours then I need to know more about national cultures to understand and then manage the behaviours. Of course, when the term culture is used in this way interesting and useful generalisations quickly fall into the trap of stereotyping.
2. Culture gives us interesting metaphors
Interculturalists have given us interesting metaphors - the iceberg, the onion etc. - as a way of explaining the nature of intercultural communication. The iceberg model of culture highlights the gap between the visible (above water) part of culture and the invisible drivers (values and beliefs). It makes us sensitive to the fact that we may not understand fully what we observe, if we don’t understand the drivers. The onion model of culture reminds us that culture is complex;it’s more than nationality– there is regional culture, organisational culture, departmental culture, team culture, functional culture, family culture and issues of age, gender, ethnic and religious groups which determine an individual’s mindset and behaviour.
3. Culture tells us about important dimensions of difference between people
The reason intercultural communication is increasing as a field of interest is that it touches on very significant dimensions of difference between people. People do think differently about time, about authority, about organisation etc. Discussing culture allows us to focus on important areas of diversity and deal with potential or actual problems.
It is a common belief that US companies tend to focus on short-term profit – bottom-line – and that Japanese companies may focus on more long-term return on investment in order to achieve market position. Regardless of whether this stereotype is accurate or not, it identifies an important cultural preference, which you may need to consider when communicating direction (goals) in international business.The Mindful International Manager pp.60
The strongly dominant approach in the intercultural field is to use a number of universal cultural dimensions, for example attitudes to time, and then compare different cultures with cross-cultural analysis. Some have begun to challenge this idea and have raised the possibility that this form of cultural analysis itself contains western values. (Wierzbicka, Anna. English, Meaning and Culture. OUP. pp. 24)
4. Culture is a creative process
Culture is sometimes described in terms of how individuals are shaped, are conditioned to think and behave in certain ways – people are products of culture. In fact, we can also think of culture as a creative process which individuals can manage to develop solutions. Many new teams, for example, agree common rules of interaction for themselves – with vision and values – as a platform for better business performance. In this understanding, culture also has a leadership dimension. Perhaps effective international leaders are those who proactively create the culture around them.
5. Culture is a signpost to the interpersonal
It’s important to recognise that intercultural communication is actually interpersonal communication. We don’t communicate with cultures, we communicate with individuals. However, the problem with cultural norms is that they don’t give us, necessarily, an understanding of any individual we have to work with. Firstly, the individual may be atypical and not fit the cultural norm. Secondly, general and very simplified cultural norms cannot tell us enough about the unique and complex personality of any individual.
6. Culture makes us think about ourselves and how we communicate
The starting point for intercultural competence is self-understanding. If we do not understand ourselves, our assumptions and preferences, we will be unable to understand other’s mindsets and behaviours openly. By discussing culture, we can become sensitive to who we are, and who others are, and can begin to build communication strategies to build common understanding. That’s quite useful and ... at the end of the day ... what keeps me using the term culture in my training.
Culture, communication and language
‘Most sentences short enough to use in everyday conversation do not literally express things we are likely ever to mean, and most things we are likely ever to mean are not expressible by sentences we are likely ever to utter. That’s something to think about.’ Kent Bach,Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language, Michael Devitt and Richard Hanley, eds. (2003)
A lot of what we do as language trainers is based on giving people ... language. But giving people language doesn’t necessarily increase an individual’s ability to communicate.This is because successful communication requires so much more than using correct English.
Communication is a complex cultural process. As we speak we express values and attitudes in the words, phrases and styles of speaking. We also express our own personalities – our own unique world view – when we open our mouths. If listeners do not understand these cultural values, if they are not open our unique world views, they cannot hear what others say. If speakers are not sensitive to the listener, they will not say things which make sense, and communication will fail. Business professionals need to combine the right English with intercultural and interpersonal communication strategies in order to communicate successfully.
To finish, I would like to raise a few questions about teaching, using and learning English internationally. I start with a basic question – What is good international English? Some research has shown that non-native speakers spend 80% of their international communication time with other non-native speakers – international teams using English as a lingua franca, for example. In this context, people understand each other very well using an intermediate level of English with a limited vocabulary and simplified grammar. Curiously, it is often the native English speakers who are the bad international communicators. They often speak too fast, for too long and use a language which is too complex for their non-native English speaking colleagues to understand.
This raises a number of interesting follow-up questions:
1. Should native English speakers receive training in how to speak international English(es) as spoken by non-native English speaking partners?
2. Does it make sense to train non-native speakers to be advanced speakers of English? In doing so, do we not make them less understandable to non-native English speaking colleagues who have a lower language competence?
3. Learning English vocabulary and grammar is a hard and long term process. Wouldn’t it make more sense to train communication strategies which help people to use the English they already have more effectively?
4. Is there a danger that the English traditionally taught and the methodology of learning carry culturally specific values? Could it be that the belief that communication is based on using the ‘right’ words, ‘short and simple’ phrases and ‘accurate’ grammar is not a universal? Rihbany writes about Syria and Middle Eastern speech:
Poetry, and not ... accuracy, must be the dominant feature of speech. A Syrian’s chief purpose in a conversation is to convey (communicate) an impression by whatever ... means, and not to deliver his message in scientifically accurate terms. He expects to be judged not by what he says, but by what he means.' Rihbany, Abraham Mitrie. 1920. The Syrian Christ. London: A Melrose (from) Wierzbicka, Anna. English, Meaning and Culture. OUP. pp. 29
It’s all food for thought ... and maybe, as with culture, that’s the point. What I have said isn’t true in any sense of the term but it gets us thinking and collaborating together. Let me know your thoughts.
BOB DIGNEN is a director of York Associates. He specialises in intercultural skills programmes and international team seminars which he delivers to clients in Germany, Switzerland, Iceland and Sweden. He is accredited to use The International Profiler (an intercultural profiling tool) and is also an advanced practitioner of TMP (Team Management Profile – an international team profiling tool).
As an author, he worked onEnglish365for Cambridge University Press and has written50 Ways to Improve your International Presentation Skills. He is also co-author ofDeveloping People Internationally, a multimedia international team training resource.

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