During one of our lectures with the INEMA students we were discussing the bright sides and the dark sides of globalization.\u00a0 Whilst discussing and giving our opinions, I had an uncomfortable situation with one male student from Afghanistan.\u00a0 I was expressing my opinion that many of the circumstances surrounding globalization are dependent on the specific situation.\u00a0 However, my INEMA partner disagreed and when I pressed forward with more questions that would discredit his opinion, he stopped listening and told me that I must not support globalization.<\/p>\n
After witnessing several instances with my other colleagues, I am considering if this was a language barrier or a cultural difference?\u00a0 Is it that the INEMA student was raised in a culture that doesn’t respect a woman’s opinion?\u00a0 Or is it that he didn’t have the right vocabulary and language proficiency to get his point across?\u00a0 In many instances, it seemed as though the INEMA students were very “intense” and “direct”, and as I reflect on this I am beginning to think that it’s a combination of both.\u00a0 When having a discussion with a native German and an Egyptian, there were many times that both were unable to pinpoint the thought they were trying to get across without help from me and my vocabulary.\u00a0 In my reflections, I believe that as native English speakers, it falls on us to help the communication between others as we are the “experts” of the common tongue.\u00a0 We can’t let a direct or intense statement turn us off to a particular person when we don’t know the true intentions of their words because in some instances it may be a language barrier rather than a cultural difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During one of our lectures with the INEMA students we were discussing the bright sides and the dark sides of globalization.\u00a0 Whilst discussing and giving our opinions, I had an uncomfortable situation with one male student from Afghanistan.\u00a0 I was expressing my opinion that many of the circumstances surrounding globalization are dependent on the specific<\/p>\n