Week 7 - October 26th/2020 - Cross Cultural Students

 

Cross Cultural Students

This week, as part of my studies to become a TESOL educator, I was asked to watch a video by Professor John J. Ivers. In his video, Ivers spoke about cross-cultural classrooms, these are classrooms where many cultures merge. These can be places of some of the richest learning experiences, as long as teachers and students are open to learning not only about the subject matter, but also from the experiences of those around them. Learning about other cultures and their way of doing things can open our eyes to a wider world, which will help us to become more understanding of our own lives and others’ realities as well. 

Professor Ivers stated: “Whenever a student is from a different place or ethnic group does something weird, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even though you may be interpreting it negatively, it may not be meant negatively. There’s a principle that you need to understand when you go into teaching in the diverse country in which we live”. Important to point out, as Ivers did in his class, that sometimes those cross-cultural differences happen with the subcultures that co-exist within the borders of a single country. He explained that one of his children was in 4th grade when they moved from North Carolina to Idaho. In North Carolina, students would say “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am” to say “yes, teacher”. When his son did that in Idaho, the teacher thought he was being sarcastic and sent the child with the principal. We have to be aware of being quick judgers when seeing others’ attitudes or behaviors, something that might be wrong to our culture may be totally appropriate in other cultures. 

I believe that as future teachers, we need to learn to be excellent observers. The best we become at observing, the easiest it will get to understand our students’ reactions, attitudes, and behaviors. 

 References:

https://video.byui.edu/media/06+Cross-Cultural+Students+in+the+Classroom/0_r2lcaswt