Tutorial №2 (1 hour)

Practical tasks for tutorial classes on Basics of Intercultural Communication

Course. 5 semester

A.y.

Module 1

Tutorial №1 (1hour)

Theme 1: The notion of Intercultural communication

Problem questions:

1) Are the terms intercultural and cross-cultural the same or different?

2) Do culture and communication have the links?

3) What distinguishes intercultural communication from other types of communication?

4) What are common things and differences between interethnic, interracial, cross-cultural communications?

5) What are the common reasons for the formation of intercultural communication?

6) Why the successful adaptation of individuals is important in instrumental approach?

7) In order to preserve the uniqueness of cultures, as well as the idea of their interaction what should we do?

8) What is the aim of the understanding approach? Why is this approach important in ICC?

Task 1:

Make a table of studies which are related to ICC.

Problem questions:

1) What is ICC?

2) How has the development of ICC changed?

3) What can you say about other disciplines which are related to ICC?

Task 2: You have been asked to prepare and test a questionnaire that will be used among the students of your specialty concerning to the subject you are studying. The questionnaire will be used in interview with students to collect the following information:

 Students’ attitudes to the subject;

 Their background knowledge about culture;

 The role of Intercultural communication

 Relations of this subject with other studies;

 More information

Your questionnaire should contain a mix of question types:

a) a multiple choice question

b) a closed question

c) an open question

Prepare your questionnaire (20 questions).

Task 3:

Give the examples of the instrumental and understanding approaches. Make a table and compare two approaches.

Task 4: Interpretation.

Give your interpretations to the following definition of culture by Clyde Kluckhohn. After create your own definitions to the culture.

“Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting. The essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values.”

Tutorial №2 (1 hour)

Theme: The history of Intercultural communication

Subtheme: High and Low Context Cultures

Problem questions:

1) Can you interpret E. Hall’s Intercultural Communication Theory?

2) What is the silent language?

3) What are the methods of research defining intercultural communication?

Task 1:

Project work

Prepare your project according to Edward Hall’s classification.

You may choose high or low context cultures and describe one of them. You may include countries which belong to these cultures.

High-Context Cultures:

- China

- Korea

- Japan

- Latin America

- France

Low-Context Cultures:

-The U.S.A.

-Scandinavia

-Germany

Task 2:

What do we call the people who come from these countries? Define the nationalities of these countries.

Japan, America, Spain, Germany, Canada, Australia, France, China, Portugal, Turkey, Egypt, Brazil, Sweden.

Task 3: Interpretation.

Give your interpretations to the following definition of culture by Robert Kohls. After create your own definitions to the culture.

“Culture is an integrated system of learned behavior patterns that are characteristic of the members of any society. Culture refers to the total way of life for a particular group of people. It includes what a group of people thinks, says, does and makes-its customs, language, material artifacts and shared systems of attitudes and feelings. ”

Tutorial # 3

MODULE 1

TASKS:

1. Make an outline of a special lecture or seminar devoted to the theme “General notions on the history of intercultural communication”. In your outline you may include the following factors:

- aims and principles of the lecture or seminar

- problem tasks or questions related to the theme

- introduction, body and conclusion of your presentation

- list of used literature

2. State out the reasons why knowledge about different cultures is needed. Give examples.

3. Find out information on the researches in the field of ICC. Make a table that shows the names of Western, Kazakh and Russian linguists or scholars who really concerned with the problems of ICC.

4. Write down 5-7 brainstorming questions about the theory and practice of intercultural communication. Then give answers to them.

5. Explain in your own words the necessity of intercultural communication in our life. If possible give examples as much as possible.

6. Comment on the critical incident. Explain if it is the same or different in your culture.

Peter went downtown to an office to pick up some documents. When he arrived, he went to the front desk and talked to the receptionist. The receptionist was very helpful and seemed to go out of his way to make sure Peter wouldn’t have any trouble getting what he needed. Peter was very happy with the service and thought about how different it was from the service in his country. About half an hour later, he was just getting ready to leave the office when he realized that he had one more question. The receptionist was not at his desk, but Peter saw him in the hallway so he rushed out to catch him. Instead of helping Peter, the man told him that he was on his break and that Peter would have to wait until he got back. Peter was surprised by the receptionist’s response.

7. Comment on the critical incident. Explain if it is the same or different in your culture.

Sandra gave her students a grammar test. During the test, a student was looking at another student’s answers and writing them on his paper. The teacher asked him to do the test on his own. The student continued to look at the other student’s answers. The teacher took his paper away and threw it into the garbage in full view of all the other students to make the point that the student’s answers were not an indication of his understanding of the grammar and that it was pointless to write the test if he was just going to cheat. The student was very upset and went to the office to complain.

8. Fill in the gaps with correct words: The structure of communicative competence: language competence, ___, ____, discourse competence, ___.

9. There are four dimensions of intercultural communicative competence. They are knowledge, ___, ___, ___.

10. Intercultural competences is needed because _____.

11. There are some methods to assess intercultural competence. They are computer-based validity-testing questions, ____, ____, ____, ____.

Tutorial # 4

TASKS:

1. Comment on the critical incident. Explain if it is the same or different in your culture.

George really infuriated me because when it was time to hand in his assignment, he gave me a whole bunch of lame excuses. It really upset me because I felt that he was not taking his work seriously and did not pay attention to the deadlines. I explained the assignment very carefully and put the deadlines up on the board – so when he made up excuses to cover himself, he really made me mad. I felt bad, though, because there was another student who did not have his assignment done either, but he apologized and said he’d hand it in later that day. He never did hand it in on that day; he handed it in a few days later, but since he had apologized, somehow I accepted that and was nice to him.

2. Explain in your own words the necessity of intercultural communication in our life. If possible give examples as much as possible.

3. Write down 5-7 brainstorming questions about the theory and practice of intercultural communication. Then give answers to them.

4. Explain the following notions and say your reasons:

Communication is of dynamic character; communication is of implicit character; communication is of complex character.

5. Prepare your own visual models of culture in the form of diagram.

6. State out the pros and cons of knowing foreign languages. What is the connection of culture with knowing foreign languages?

7. There are different types of culture that may be taken into account in communication, apart from national culture, as Gibson describes, the term “culture” includes:

 Corporate culture

 Professional culture

 Gender

 Age

 Religious culture

 Regional culture

 Class culture

8. Individualism "describes the degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than group members." As you might imagine, cultures that score high on the individualism dimension are considered to be "me" societies. They focus on the interest of the individual. On the other side of the spectrum, you find the "we" cultures in which the interest of the group is of utmost importance. Closely related to this dimension is the concept of "self." People in high individualism societies find it natural for people to express themselves and discover their own unique qualities. They have an "independent view of the self." In societies where the group is more important, and "interdependent view of the self" exists. These people feel more comfortable with and want to be connected to others.

1) According to G.Hofstede’s categorization of cultures explain the meaning of this given dimension.

2) What other dimensions do you know? Describe each dimension.

3) What do we call the people who come from these countries? Define the nationalities of these countries.

Japan, America, Spain, Germany, Canada, Australia, France, China, Portugal, Turkey, Egypt, Brazil, Sweden.

9. Knowing the language goes far beyond knowing the dictionary translation of the word. You must know its connotations and any other meanings that may have been attached to it over the years as well. Now look at this sentence. What does it mean to you?

“Tom is gay.”

There are two meanings of this sentence:

1) Tom is happy.

2) Tom is the homosexual.

Due to the possible confusion, the word “gay” is seldom used to mean happy by Americans.

Prepare a short report according to the theme of the seminar.

10. John is Catholic. Every Sunday, he goes to Mass. He never dresses up. In his church dress doesn’t really matter. While in vacation in another country, John is invited by friends to attend Mass. He eagerly accepts and agrees to meet his friends at the church. Since he is vacationing on an island, it is hot, and he has never seen anyone really dress up he decides to wear his good pair of shorts and a shirt. John, however, never makes it inside the church. Upon seeing him in his shorts, his friends turn him away. It wouldn’t be proper for him to attend Mass dressed in such a manner.

What do you think about this scenario?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14