My
daughter had a wonderful Saturday as today was her school picnic. She was able to enjoy the day playing and
socializing with all her friends. My daughter
was very excited for this day; however, I had mixed thoughts about the
picnic. Since we live in Germany, my
daughter attends a German preschool and fluently speaks the language. This is not the first social I’ve attended,
but I always get anxious and nervous as my German is defiantly not the
greatest. When I compare how I communicate
with people from different cultures or groups, I am constantly analyzing,
thinking and organizing my thoughts before I communicate what I want to
say. “Will this make sense?” “Is this
appropriate to say?” “Is everyone staring at me?” “Is this how I would ask this
question?” Usually, there is so much more I want to say,
but that I don’t say because I’m afraid my message will not be understood and I
feel awkward when this happens. Inter-cultural
communication encounters are particularly prone to misunderstandings of
intentions, partially because of language difficulties, but largely due to cultural
differences in the expression of intentions (Gonzalez-Mena, J. 2010). Today,
as I communicated with some of the parents, I found myself talking slowly, using
my hands more, using short phrases, and nodding “yes” to everything that was
said to me. I don’t know why I agree and
pretend like I understand at times, but maybe it’s because I feel awkward and
nervous. When I first met my mother-in-law,
my husband told her, “She’s not deaf, she just doesn’t understand” because
every time my mother-in-law would talk, she would talk slowly and very
loud. I think the biggest challenge or
difference I see when talking to someone of a different culture is my anxiety
level and nervousness. It’s hard to
present my true personality when I can’t effectively communicate. But, there are always those individuals who
will go out of their way to make me feel included by speaking in short phrases
and will pick up on my non-verbal cues when I don’t understand and
rephrase.
References:
Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2010). 50
strategies for communicating and working with diverse families. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
It must be very difficult living in a country that speaks a different language than you. My family will be experiencing the same type of situation next year when we move overseas.
ReplyDeleteTammy I understand a great deal how you feel; you want people to understand you as you try to communicate, and you do not want them to feel awkward either. According to (O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012) intercultural communication matters, we live in a diverse and mobile society we study, play, and work with people who are different from you on a number of levels. I am glad your daughter had a good time socializing with the children that were different from her, communication with others that are different is good; children should know how to interact, and what is so funny they get along well it is adults that have a problem dealing with it, thanks Tammy for sharing your experience.
ReplyDeleteDear Tammy,
ReplyDeleteyour post in your blog reminds me of my visit one day in Bremen, Germany. By the time our plane was landing in Bremen airport, I found out that my son was very sick with his body temperature is about 40 degree! We were such in panic because we realize as the tourist we did not speak Germany while most of the people there were speaking Germany only and we needed to go to the doctor and interact with the people there to bring my son! Luckily we can contact our relative there in Bremen and they act as our translator to the nurses who welcomed us warmly... in Germany of course!
It was a great relieve when we have somebody to help us when we have our anxiety adjusting in our totally new environment!
Great post Tammy!
Evita Kartikasari
One of my Eastern Star sister is stationed in Germany with her husband. She always tells me how their is such a big language barrier and it isn't as easy to learn German as it is Spanish. I think that after a while you kind of feel left out especially if there aren't other people around you who speak English.
ReplyDelete