When I conducted group fitness classes in PGP last Saturday, I found the way how my students arranged themselves pretty predictable: Westerners stood in the first row, closest to me, and would demand me to repeat my moves if they did not manage to catch up; Singaporeans stood at a not-so-conspicuous yet very convenient position for him/her, and mostly only stayed for the sessions they preferred; Indians stood at flanks, and would move back and forth depending on their interest in the particular dance type that I was teaching; Vietnamese stayed at the back, from the beginning to the end; Chinese, well, they M.I.A.ed.
During the short break, I managed to talk to a few and make a few interesting observations: Westerners approached me to help them improve on their dance, which I expected as I believed they were taught to be more open-minded and more eager to present his/herself; neither was I surprised when I only received moderate and mild feedbacks from Vietnamese. I suppose obedience is somewhat in the vein of the nation; also since I was expecting Indians to be hyper as a result of the elan that a rapidly industrializing country usually possessed, I was prepared for some light banter with them that would make all of us happy, in a loud manner; many Singaporeans left halfway so I didn’t manage to talk to them. Sad case despite understandable, multi-tuskers engendered in pragmatism and elitism tend to be busier; and lastly, Chinese, well my fellow countrymen all somehow managed to find some last-minute urgent work to cater to. Guess people were all getting busier nowadays =[
Behavior is a complex mechanism that primarily derives from personal experience, of which cultural background plays a vital part. As such, in order to understand behavior and facilitate inter-cultural communication, one must first be able to empathize, namely to admit, understand and to appreciate the differences, preferably via active listening and role reversal. As it did in my case, different students needs to be treated differently to promote communication and to maximize efficiency: a 30-minutes rotation of position needs to be proposed to encourage those passive people to stand in the front; a clearer schedule should be posted up to save the time of busy people and better cater to the mass public; a follow-up web-link should be provided for those argent learners or fitness enthusiast, and a reminder ‘NO LAST MINUTE BAILING’ should be put up as MOTD for the fickle o_O
4 comments on "Post 2: Intercultural & Interpersonal Communication"
Hey Tan Chen
In your post, you gave quite a lot of observations on how students from different countries behave when having lessons. I quite agree with the observations that you made and the explanations that you gave for the behaviours of the respective racial groups in class. For your post, I feel that you did not talk about how the different cultural groups communicate with each other. Perhaps, you could have elaborate more on how the principles on intercultural and interpersonal communication can apply in your case. You could talk more on how you, as an instructor, communicate well in class with your students from different cultural groups.
Hey, Tan Chen.
This is really a long example and I learn a lot from your experience. I think your fitness classes are so interesting that you are able to get to know people of different races and countries at the same time. You are a good observer and show me a lot of examples about the ways of how different people learn and communicate in your classes. Your reflection on their behavior also makes me learn about how to react to different people.
I think the topic focus on the communication between two parties from different culture or background, but your post mainly discusses how different kinds of people communicate. Maybe you can write more on intercultural and interpersonal communication itself.
Hi Tan Chen,
Your example was well-elaborated, with much supporting details, and was thus an entertaining read. It was good that it was a personal example, as it made your blog post more original. Your writing was casual which made it more relatable to readers.
However, you could have been more concise. Perhaps you could have summarized the observations at your group fitness class, and added in more varied examples, so as to make your post more interesting. I also felt that you might have stereotyped the people from different countries, and generalizations are better avoided, so as not to offend cultural sensitivities. These observations of behaviors may be due to your students’ individual personalities, rather than due to their cultural background. Your example also deviated a little, and you could have related it more to the topic of intercultural and interpersonal communication. For example, your sentence, “Sad case despite understandable, multi-tuskers engendered in pragmatism and elitism tend to be busier” was confusing, and I was unsure about its relevance to the topic.
On the whole, it was an engaging post, with background information about what is necessary for effective cultural communication; and reflection on your experience so as to make improvements.
Hello Tan Chen,
Your point about active listening and role reversal is very valid, and I agree completely with it!
Were you talking about the different groups of people based on observations during your session? I guess it's inevitable for to have pre-conceptions of different people, but personally I think such generalisations are not representative of everyone, and it's probably better to keep an open mind about people and personalities. After all, correlation is not equivalent to causation. In particular, I think that maybe your use of the word 'elitism' is not very accurate? I haven't actually met too many of these 'elite' people so... I think they might just be busy people.
But anyway, while it was good that you shared some insights on the different groups of people, you might want to talk a bit more about their interaction and communication with each other, or you :)
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