lesson 5 10/14/17 Response to "Cross-Cultural Communication"

How great and challenging can be teaching, especially if the students are from another culture. I only have experience teaching Brazilians and Paraguayans, but I can see the a lot of difference. Brazilians are always loud and all over the place, but Paraguayans are almost very shy and speaks very low. I know that each culture has its rules and some students will follow it or not, but despite of this fact, we (teachers) have to know their customs, so we can get to know them better and help with the transition.

Customs like apologizing, pointing at someone, personal space, being on time are very cultural. Dr. Ivers mentions how the Southern part of the USA are so polite, saying “Yes ma’am or sir”. Where I am from, we all have the custom to call people “uncle or aunt”, don’t know why but everybody always does that. Brazilians kids/adolescents will do that all the time in the classroom and we teachers need to keep up with that, even though we are not family.