ARW Autumn 9/13-14: Intro to Culture, Perception, Communication Unit

After reviewing names, we talked about how we can simply define the terms Culture, Perception, Communication (as a "personal" working definition), why they are important to us, and what issues or problems in relation to them we might consider for essays and discussions.

Here's our definitions.

For issues/problems, for example, we brainstormed (mainly in BB) that some key issues are Intercultural Misunderstandings, War and Conflict between peoples, Discrimination, Extreme Beliefs (based on misperceptions), and Lack of Communication.

As for good key words, for essays, I encouraged students to find articles in the news (like this one about Aso's "One Race" speech) that show some of the main culture/perception/communication related issues.

Two examples of past students essays I showed were about "Causes of Discrimination Against Ainu" and "Is the Veil in Islam Discrimination Against Women?". Both of these were very nicely written based on the students' interest in cultural understanding issues they found on the Internet or other media.


I hope all students have good luck with finding a topic they are interested in! Here are the Essay Guidelines.

Finally, we reviewed how to read a text and prepare notes for discussion.

I introduced the idea of "Top-Down" reading (see graphic) briefly, and then introduced 5 steps I hope all students will do for our reading text (Barna's Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication pp.1-7). See you on Wed!


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