Cultural Diversity Communication Strategies

After learning all I have about communication the last few weeks, I have self-reflected and seen the differences in my communication with people from different cultures.  I do believe that I communicate differently, especially with the parents of my students.  I feel that I speak slower and I try to use very proper Spanish.  I know that's from own hang-ups about being corrected for my "Cuban slang Spanish" through the years.  I also find that I give a lot more detail on my Spanish directions to the parents because I feel that they just don't understand my directions most of the time, such as with homework assignments.  This has been from my previous experiences with Spanish-speaking families.

Some strategies that I could use when communicating with them more effectively is to withhold judgment and get a deeper understanding of them, instead of using my past experiences as my impression of ALL Spanish speaking families.  I also need to model things for them instead of giving so much direction so that they have an example to follow (when asking for family-made projects) and lastly create a better expectation of their abilities because I'm sure I could come off as coddling as compared to my English speaking parents who I just explain things to once and have an expectation that they know how to follow directions.

It's hard to be free of bias, especially when previous experiences have shown me to communicate a certain way with different people.  It's something that I am aware of and something that I know I must work on for the rest of my career.  It all begins with educating myself, so I'm ready to put this to practice!

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Jeannette

Communications in Mute

"Trophy Wife"

For this week's assignment, I chose to watch the show TROPHY WIFE which I knew nothing about.  First I watched it in mute, paying close attention to the non-verbal communication, then I watched it with the volume on and boy were my assumptions of what was going on way off.....

First of all, I assumed that the husband in the show lived with two wives and that those two wives were good friends.  The truth was that his ex-wife is always hanging around his house and his new wife really doesn't care for her much.  When the volume was on, they were very sarcastic to one another which in mute seems like genuine friendliness.  Very interesting!

Second, there were two other women in the show who had a couple of scenes together and I thought they were lesbians who were fighting, just because of the way they looked at each other and the closeness of their proximity in their interactions.  Well, again, truth is they just met and they weren't very nice to one another because one was a doctor who thought very little of the other, a mere bartender. 

If this had been a show that I normally watch, like Modern Family, I wouldn't have the same assumptions because I know the casts relationship with one another and it would have been easy to figure out what was going on in the episode, even on mute.

So, my biggest A-HA moment of this assignment was how SARCASM looks like genuine friendly interaction when you don't hear what is being said.  I have always hated sarcasm, and now hate it even more.  hahahahaha

Hope you enjoyed this post!  I for one, now picked up another show because Trophy Wife was actually a pretty funny show...(with the sound on!)

Janet

Communication - Blog 1

I consider my principal to have great communication skills.  She is very knowledgeable about early childhood education and helps to make all the teachers.  She always listens to our questions and concerns and validates our feelings.  That, in turn, makes us feel heard.  I would definitely like to be more like her because although she may have a strong opinion about something, she never forces it on us, instead is open-minded and listens to our suggestions.  I think that is a very important part of communication.  It's listening as well as giving your point of view.  It has to be two-sided.