Jen Whetten's TESOL Pedagogy II, BYUI

     Cultural miscommunication can result as a lack of understanding of cultural paradigms. One constant source of misunderstanding is between monochronic and polychronic cultures, which was addressed HERE . Another source of misunderstanding can occur when intent is misread.       As Brother Ivers discussed in his lecture entitled "Cultural Miscommunication", he talked about the Latin culture of politeness and an intense desire to not offend. In many cases, this concept is of paramount importance, even more important than honesty. This makes sense because Latin cultures value relationships over all things, and sometimes, according to their paradigm, it is important to lie or twist the truth in order to avoid offending someone.       My brother-in-law and I dealt with this confusing situation recently. He needed to have a television repaired, so he dropped it off and was told by the owner that he should have it fixed by the next day...

      In Brother Iver's lecture, "Cultural Differences Concerning Time", we learn about the difference between monochronic and polychronic cultures. According to the article "Monochronic vs. Polychronic Cultures: What is the Difference", we learn that "The monochronic individual believes in finishing one task at a time. In their time culture, time is a valuable commodity that shouldn’t be wasted and sticking to one task at a time ensures that it’s well-managed. The monochronic culture schedules one event at a time in an orderly fashion" ( VP Legacies®). In contrast, we learn that "In the polychronic culture, employees can work on several tasks simultaneously. Polychronic individuals thrive on carrying out more than one task at the same time as long as they can be executed together with a natural rhythm." The important thing to understand is that "The critical difference between the two time cultures is that monochronic cultures value sch...

     This week's study in cultural paradigms was fascinating, and something I think about on a nearly daily basis. The reason for this is that I am an American born and raised in the United States now living in Mexico. Although I have lived here for fourteen years, I am still in turns amazed, puzzled, impressed, and confused by the differences in the way that many Mexican people think as opposed to how people raised in the United States think. One example I can think of in particular is the paradigm of body size and shape that somewhat goes along with the Ted Talk entitled "Cultural Clashes in Defining Beauty" . Growing up in the United States, my sister and myself often felt rejected because as teenagers we didn't fit the "American" paradigm of beauty. We were full-figured, fun-loving girls, but didn't attract too many boys because we weren't the "Twiggy" model type. However, when we would travel to the beaches of Mexico with our parents a...

      A funny thing just happened. I started to write: "When I think about the article 'Is the Great American Teacher Dead?' (Ivers, 2012),  I think about a teacher named Brother Ivers, to whom I was exposed last semester in my TESOL 101 and 102 classes. When we were assigned to watch his videos, I quickly learned that they were going to be entertaining, funny, memorable, and above all, I would remember what he taught." What to my surprise when I went to cite this article with the author's name and date and realized it was he, Brother Ivers, who wrote the very article which I was citing!         Bro. Ivers lives what he preaches. His students are completely engaged at all times, both in the live classroom and, speaking for myself, while watching his recorded videos. He created a list of some of the qualities a good teacher must have, and I remember noticing these attributes while watching his videos. I noticed attention paid to the following:...