Training the trainers: what do professional communicators need to be aware of in intercultural communication?
Sun, Jing
Introduction
With the population of immigrants increasing in the last few
decades in the United States, the school districts have been facing
increasing challenges in the education of the immigrant students and the
communication with the families who do not speak English. Members of
this community are challenged by conditions of their class, race, and
language background and many immigrant families are facing the double
challenges of acculturation and economic disadvantage (training
handouts, 2006). They feel confused in negotiating the American school
system and dealing with the changed situations and changed relationship
between parents and their children. The role of the intercultural
mediators or professional communicators in social contexts such as
educational institutions, community based organizations and public
services become increasingly important. Given the complex nature of the
communication involving people with different cultural backgrounds and
given the clashes of thoughts and behaviors among these immigrant
families in the two-track acculturation process, the professional
communicators have to have special knowledge, positive attitudes and
intercultural communication skills to be able to cope with all kinds of
issues and situations. There is the need for training among these
communicators to increase their knowledge, cultural awareness and
ability to ensure their effective and successful communication with the
immigrant families.
Various communication approaches and projects have been designed
and implemented to improve the communication between the school and
non-English speaking parents and between the parents and their children.
The whole notion is to open the door and provide an access for these
parents to the American educational system on one hand and to promote
family strengths and family functioning on the other.
This paper investigates a few potential barriers in intercultural
professional communication and how these issues were treated or not
treated in the training--a project designed to train the staff who were
selected by community based organizations to conduct regular workshops
for non-English speaking parents. Intercultural communication, awareness
of cultural difference, stereotyping and language use will be discussed.
By drawing upon the recent research and theories in intercultural
communication and through the analysis of the issues, this paper tries
to answer the following questions:
1) Is this training on parenting skills related to intercultural
communication?
2) If yes, what are the potential barriers these professional
communicators need to be aware of in intercultural communication?
3) Did the training help increase the professional
communicators' awareness and develop their intercultural
communication competence?
It is claimed that professional communicators working with
non-English speaking parents need to increase their awareness of the
potential barriers and intercultural communication competence in order
to handle the complex issues and conflicts. Intercultural communication
should be one of the important components in the training provided for
intercultural professional communicators.
Professional Communicators and Intercultural communication
Professional communicators, according to Scollon and Scollon
(2001), refer to "anyone for whom communication is a major aspect
of his or her work" (p.3), such as nurses, translators, teachers
and trainee manager. In this paper, I include both the trainer and
participants (prospective trainers) in this category due to the
communicative nature of their work. The trainer's task was to
develop participants' communication skills as well as other related
skills and to ensure that the participants understand fully the content
and learn from this training through listening, reading and discussing.
On the other hand, the participants would conduct their workshops as
trainers later for non-English speaking parents. The purpose of these
workshops would be for the trainers to communicate effectively with the
parents, specifically, to help improve the communication between the
parent and child.
Intercultural communication generally refers to "face-to-face
interaction among people of diverse cultures" (Jandt, 1998:36). But
"culture is a notion that is often difficult to grasp"
(Erickson, 1997:33). In communication across the cultures, the
boundaries between cultures are most often marked by political or
national boundaries between countries. However, Erickson' s (1997)
orienting assumptions on culture are that "every person and every
human group possesses both culture and cultural diversity" (p 34).
This is especially true in the complex modern world as well as in the
countries of immigration like the United States. He gives an example to
illustrate: Mexican Americans are not culturally identical to Puerto
Ricans living on the mainland, but not all Mexican Americans or Puerto
Ricans are culturally identical even if they live in the same
neighborhood and attend the same school (p.34). According to Scollon
& Scollon (2001), none of us can be fully defined by our membership
in any single group and we all are simultaneously members of multiple
groups or "discourse systems"(p.170). Therefore, they argue
that all communication is to some extent intercultural. Singer (1998)
also states that in any interpersonal communication, the individual
actually functions somewhat "interculturally". The difference
lies only in degree. That is, the fewer group identities the two
interlocutors share, the more "intercultural" is the
communication between them.
"Communication works better when the participants share more
assumptions and knowledge about the world"(Scollon & Scollon,
2001:21). That is, if two people have similar backgrounds and
experiences, their communication is likely to work easily. If any two
people differ in group membership such as gender, education, histories,
ethnic and cultural groups, each will find it more difficult to draw
inference about what the other person means. This is where
mis-communication may occur. Their approach to intercultural/
interdiscourse professional communication is to increase shared
knowledge and to assume that miscommunication will occur and will need
to be dealt with.
Regarding miscommunication between people of diverse cultures, the
sources have been traced to "the distinctive nature of the value
systems, pervasive configurations of social relations, and dominant
ideologies of cultural groups" (Chick, 2005). Therefore,
intercultural communication cannot allow the easy assumption of
similarity (Bennett, 1998; Jandt, 1998). Since cultures are different in
their languages, behavior patterns, and values, an attempt to use
one's own experience and judgment to predict shared assumptions and
responses to messages is unlikely to work (Bennett, 1998). But assuming
difference instead of similarity can be a barrier as well and may lead
to failure in recognizing important things that cultures share in common
(Jandt, 1998).
Literature Review
The main issue of intercultural communication is
"difference" and how to deal with difference (Bennett, 1998).
Talking about cultural difference, we tend to think about the
differences of history, language, food, music and etc. These, according
to Erickson (1997), are visible, explicit aspect of culture and can be
learned consciously. What we usually neglect or are unaware of is
invisible culture, which is "not only held outside conscious
awareness but is also learned and taught outside awareness"
(Erickson, 1997: 40). Much of our culture is invisible in our daily life
such as the rule of speaking, social behavior, politeness, etiquette and
socializing, as is discussed in Erickson (1997). We know when to speak,
when not to, what to say to whom, where and in what manner. All these
become so habitual that we don't even think about them nor realize
their existence. "Objective and subjective culture" are other
terms for visible and invisible culture (Bennett, 1998). Subjective
culture is "the learned and shared patterns of beliefs, behaviors,
and values of groups of interacting people." (Bennett, 1998:3)
According to Bennett (1998), understanding objective culture may
increase one' s knowledge, but it does not necessarily generate
competence. Understanding subjective cultures--one's own and
others'--is more likely to lead to intercultural competence
(Bennett, 1998).
Besides, there are different levels and categories of culture we
need to be aware of. There are cultures within cultures (Jandt, 1998).
According to Bennett (1998), national groups are cultures at a high
level of abstraction while more specific groups such as ethnic groups
are cultures at a lower level of abstraction. Other categories of
subjective cultural diversity include gender, regionality, socioeconomic
class, physical ability, sexual orientation, and etc.
Cultural difference, visible or invisible, does not always lead to
trouble between people, but these differences can become more
troublesome in some situations (Erickson, 1997). Therefore, we need to
pay more attention to those areas that may cause miscommunication.
"Differences in invisible culture can be troublesome in
circumstances in intergroup conflict" (Erickson, 1997: 41). When
other people's verbal or nonverbal behavior is different from the
invisible cultural assumptions and behavioral patterns we have learned,
we may assume that it is not the good or right way to do things and may
see them as rude, weird, or offensive (Erickson, 1997). "The
difficulty lies in our inability to recognize others' differences
in ways of acting as cultural rather than personal" (Erickson,
1997: 41).
To be a professional in multiethnic societies involves different
degrees of intercultural awareness (Jensen, 2004). According to Stier
(2004), a major challenge for the social worker is to see and grasp
which needs and reaction patterns are universal, and which are
culture-specific or unique for the client. Another challenge is about
avoiding wrongful or inadequate conclusions where cultural peculiarities
are used to explain things which in fact are something all-human or, by
contrast, something highly individual. We cannot be certain that we can
interpret correctly other people's speech or behavior, but we could
"expect things to go wrong" and hesitate to draw any negative
conclusion about others' action (Scollon & Scollon, 2001).
Another potential barrier to intercultural communication is
stereotyping (Bennett, 1998; Jandt, 1998; Scollon & Scollon, 2001).
The word, first used by Walter Lippman in 1922, refers to judgments made
about others on the basis of their ethnic or any other group membership
(Jandt, 1998). Stereotypes arise when we act as if all members of a
culture or group share the same characteristics (Bennett, 1998). Scollon
and Scollon (2001) put stereotyping simply as another word for
overgeneralization.
There are positive stereotypes and negative stereotypes. Any form
of stereotyping is potentially an obstruction to successful
intercultural communication; however, negative stereotyping is
considered the most obstructive (Scollon & Scollon, 2001).
Stereotyping blinds us to other important aspects of a person's
character or behavior as well as the real differences between the
participants in a discourse (Scollon & Scollon, 2001). They argue
that stereotypes limit our understanding of intercultural discourse.
Stereotypes are harmful because they impede communication in many ways
(Jandt, 1998). Regarding the attitudes towards immigrants, Stephan et
al's (2005) research indicate that the negative stereotypes led to
significantly more negative attitudes toward the immigrant group than
the other types of stereotypes. Repeated miscommunication generates and
reinforces negative cultural stereotypes that constitute further
barriers to intercultural communication and contribute to forces which
maintain the social barrier and inequality, which make it difficult for
people to learn one another's conventions (Chick, 1996). It is well
illustrated in Stier (2004)'s quote: "In Sweden, if you as an
immigrant have problems, you are seen as the problem!" Another
example is what Blackledge (2001) described in her research: the English
speaking teachers in a school in UK, positioned the Bangladeshi women as
deficient in their literacy, their competence as care providers, their
access to cultural resources, and their ability to adopt the values and
behaviors of the dominant (white, middle-class) group. However, the
teachers' positioning of those women conflicted with the
women' s view of themselves. Although they could not read English,
they were literate in Bengali, and they could have used this literacy to
support their children' s reading.
According to Scollon & Scollon (2001), the solution to the
problem of oversimplification or binarism and stereotyping is two folds:
comparison between groups should always consider both likenesses and
differences. In addition, it should be based on more than a single
dimension of contrast. However, it is necessary in intercultural
communication to make cultural generalizations to director our
communication behavior (Bennett, 1998) and for some training programs to
focus on a few somewhat stereotypical attitudes and ideas in order to
prepare the people to not over-react to some behavior (Scollon &
Scollon, 2001). The application outside of one's own culture, as
Bennett (1998) indicates, is usually ethnocentric.
Data collection
The site I chose to do the research was the Parent Engagement
Office at a school district in the United States. Beginning from
January, 2006, I attended the 8week training sessions "Training the
Trainers" offered by the office. The objective of the project was
"to train staff selected by their community based organizations to
conduct regular workshops for parents," and also "to work with
community organizations interested in enhancing the parenting skills of
the parents they serve that are prepared to present at School District
parent meetings or provide time and space to host workshops for
parents." (training handouts, 2006). Parenting skills and
facilitating skills were the focus of the training, however, it was
expected that the participants could adapt it to any topic of their own
interests.
The trainer is a multicultural psychologist of Japanese origin with
many years of training experiences in parent support workshops. Another
trainer, a Khmer-American, came to most of the meetings. The
qualification for participants was to "be literate in both the home
language of the parents as well as English, demonstrate understanding of
the workings of their language community, particularly of the resources
available to its members, and the capacity to listen sensitively and be
open to the communications of ideas and emotions not mentioned directly
in words." (training handouts, 2006) The training session met every
Friday morning for eight weeks. The 12 participants were staff from four
different community based organizations and associations. Among them,
there were 4 Cambodian-Americans, 3 Vietnamese-Americans, 1 Chinese and
4 white Americans. They could speak Khmer, Vietnamese, Chinese, Spanish
and French respectively in addition to English. They were encouraged to
use the parents' language to do their workshops. It was noticed
that 4 to 5 Asian-Americans and 1 Chinese came to the meetings regularly
while the 4 white Americans attended the first two meetings, and only
one white American showed up at the third meeting and none thereafter.
I used ethnographic research methodology. The methods used for
data-gathering were participant observation and informal interviews.
Through all the discussions and activities in this multicultural
setting, I had the chance to observe and experience the dilemma,
controversies, and miscommunication discussed in the current research
and theories in intercultural communication. Detailed hand-written field
notes and the handouts from each training session were used and analyzed
in this paper.
Analysis and Discussion The Training and Intercultural
Communication
This training on parenting skills was found closely related to
intercultural communication in terms of the participants'
backgrounds and the training contents despite of the trainer's
claim and initial intention that the training would focus on parenting
skills in a general sense. Regarding the participants' backgrounds,
it was noted that in order to ensure the effective communication between
the professional communicators and the parents, being able to speak the
parents' home language was required for all the participants.
Besides, most of the participants come from immigrant families
themselves. They may share, more or less, the immigration experiences.
These advantages and shared identities, as was discussed in the
literature, would make the communication with the parents easier and
less "intercultural". Meanwhile, they help reduce, to some
extent, the risk for miscommunication and misinterpretation.
However, each participant has different cultural background and
cannot be fully defined in one category or group such as Vietnamese or
Cambodians. Even the word Cambodian was controversial during the
discussion due to political reasons: some participants preferred to
define themselves as Khmer rather than Cambodian. Many of the
participants seemed to maintain several identities that link them to
more than one nation. This was shown in a Cambodian-American
participant' s statement on the parent hitting the child.
("P" refers to the participant.)
Example 1
P1: "If kids do something wrong, they (Cambodian parents) do
this (hitting) to teach them this is wrong so that they will not do it
any more. Our (Cambodian) culture is quite different." When asked
in what language he thought, he answered, "It depends. Sometimes, I
do translation (between the two languages when I think). I have been
here for 20 years. It (English) is just a click, easy! I am
Americanized."
As was indicated, he claimed himself a Cambodian at one time by
saying "our culture", but a member in American society at
another time by using "Americanized". He seemed to distinguish
himself from other Cambodian parents by using "they" whereas
he admitted he was not an American who could think in English all the
time. He had to do translation between the two languages in his mind
sometimes. Another example was in a Vietnamese-American' s
statement.
Example 2
P2: I'll combine both Vietnamese culture and American culture
together, teach my kids what my parents taught me. But for some
(Vietnamese) parts, I'll never teach my kids."
The two examples indicate their connection and sense of belonging
to both memberships on one hand, but they did not fully define
themselves as either identity on the other. Some of the participants
were born or/and educated in the United States, some were
"Americanized", as was claimed, and others may not share any
of those parents' immigration experiences. In this sense, their
communication with the parents should be better considered as
intercultural communication.
In addition, this training itself was multilingual and
multicultural though only English was spoken at the meeting. The
communication between the trainer and the participants of diverse
cultural backgrounds and among the participants themselves was
culturally challenging and complex. This made the communication even
more "intercultural" and increased the risk for
miscommunication and misinterpretation.
In terms of the training content, the discussion actually went far
beyond parenting skills and other issues were raised by the participants
at the meetings. The trainer made it clear during my brief interview
with him after the second meeting, that parenting skills were introduced
in a general sense, and he would not define it as intercultural
communication training. However, the following conversation showed the
other side of the coin at the second meeting when the trainer just began
to introduce communication skills ("T" refers to the trainer
and "P" refers to the participant).
Example 3
T: Communication patterns exist in these families. It perhaps works
well in other countries, but not work here- kids challenge the teachers.
In Asian countries, kids don't challenge their teachers... Help
them with their communication patterns. Idea of having family meeting
once a week may be a good way to start.
P3: I would hesitate to talk to parents... change the parents, to
change their communication patterns. We need to respect others. We can
not say just because other people do it, it works, you' ll have to
do it. Maybe, they would say 'you don't need to say that. That
is your way, your culture.' This country is educated. We cannot say
'you live in my country, you must behave that way.' At least,
white people won't do so. ...
P4: Another thing we should be aware of is that, for us, knowing
their culture, it is excitement and adventure, but for them, they would
not feel comfortable. They tend to reject it. We should be aware of it
either in our communication with parents or in this training." ...
T: Is there a better way to do it? Is it translating your culture
as better than their culture?
P5: Sometimes, it's not the matter of cultural difference, but
the level of education. Some lower, uneducated parents in China hit
their kids.
Three issues were raised in this conversation that needs our
attention. First, intercultural communication issues were raised by the
participants when a topic concerning parenting skills was introduced.
The point here and the following discussion was whether one should teach
the immigrant parents to change their communication patterns, whether we
should show respect for other people's culture and whether we will
be accepted by others. This suggests that parenting skills is not only
about parenting skills, but involves some sensitive issues such as
acculturation, ideological value, education and more specifically, the
change of one's communication patterns, in other words, to change
one' s habits. It should be recognized that for some people, it is
not that easy to change the habits. Change of one' s communication
patterns could mean the change of one' s identity. The trainer did
not confront these issues but passed the questions to the participants.
Second, there were some conflicts and tensions between the
participants and the trainer though both parties intended to contribute
to the training and parent workshops. These conflicts and tensions
originated from their different attitudes and views on how to help the
immigrant parents in their communication. They were shown in the
trainer's attempt to implement his parenting skills plan and some
participants' immediate questioning and rejecting of his way of
doing it. It also reflected the intercultural professional
communicators' dilemma--"Is there a better way to do it"
without "translating your culture as better than their
culture?", as was raised by the trainer. Good intention and
willingness to help seems not enough to handle the complex situation. It
suggests that professional communicators should be aware of the dilemma,
or potential barriers, and prepare for the unexpected in intercultural
communication.
Third, stereotyping and "othering" were clearly revealed
in the language of the professional communicators without their
awareness. In the conversation quoted above, the trainer seemed to
assume that in all Asian countries, kids don' t challenge the
teachers whereas the P3 claimed that the whole country was educated and
would not force other people to change. Further, she limited the group
to "white people", and as a result, distinguished white people
in terms of education from other races that may include not only the
Japanese-American trainer but also other non-white participants. Thus,
her way of saying things produced potential communication barriers and
might be interpreted by "others" as being
"ethnocentric" though her intent was to try to prevent other
people from being "ethnocentric".
The following quote is the mission of a community-based
organization:
To help immigrants and refugees participate fully in
American Society, we will help immigrants and
refugees by protecting their legal rights,
strengthening families and promoting self-sufficiency,
eliminating barriers caused by language
and cultural difference and promoting public
awareness of the benefits of diversity in American
Society.
This mission shows all the professional communicators' good
intention and challenging work. However it might be understood otherwise
in the communication across the culture if the professional
communicators were not aware of the barriers and not careful about their
language use, as is discussed above.
The analysis above provides the answer to my first research
question: the training focusing on parenting skills was closely related
to intercultural communication and therefore, intercultural
communication issues need to be addressed explicitly at the training. My
next questions are: what are the potential barriers the professional
communicators need to be aware of? Did the training help increase the
participants' awareness and develop their intercultural
communication competence?
Barriers to Intercultural Communication
Some major potential barriers for intercultural professional
communicators are identified in their talk at the meetings. They are
ignoring cultural differences, unawareness of one' s own
stereotyping, and inappropriate use of language, some of which were
analyzed and discussed in the previous part. Meanwhile, some good
strategies were also identified in the training. They will be expounded
further below:
Ignoring cultural differences
In the first few sessions, cultural differences seemed to be
ignored by the trainer, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Whenever there were cultural issues raised by the participants, the
trainer would either pass the questions to the participants or emphasize
individual differences rather than cultural differences. However, the
importance of developing intercultural professional communicator' s
cultural awareness was illustrated in the following example. At the
second meeting of the training, following a heated discussion about the
parent hitting the child, the trainer assigned an activity
"Identifying the feelings". It was pair work, in which one
participant told a story of any kind, real or imagined, about a
situation where he/she felt emotional such as angry, embarrassed, and
frustrated but no feelings should be described; the other was supposed
to listen, rephrase the story and tell what the feelings his/her partner
has at that moment, and then get feedback from the person.
My partner, a Khmer-American, shared her school experience with me.
When she was a little girl, she was invited to dance with a school group
at the White House. The security officer was to search her body at the
White House entrance before she was allowed to enter and dance. She
refused to be searched. Later the teacher called her parents. The
teacher refused to admit her to the dancing class from then on because
she could not observe the rules. I identified her feelings as
"ashamed and frustrated," which she confirmed was correct.
Growing up in a Khmer family, she was taught that it was a shame
for a woman's body to be searched by others. Even though it was
just a regular security check at the White House, which was very common
to all Americans, the little girl would not accept it. Her belief and
value instilled through the enculturation process was invisible to
others as well as herself, yet it led to the consequent behavior--to
reject, not to accept shame, not to put herself in an embarrassing
situation, even at the risk of being criticized by the teacher. Of
course, she did not realize that such a behavior would produce a serious
result. The problem here lies with the teacher who failed to recognize
the little girl' s behavior as cultural rather than personal. If
the teacher, a professional communicator, had had some knowledge or
awareness of the cultural differences, especially the invisible culture,
he would not have hold such a negative view toward the little girl and
she would not have been rejected from the dancing class. The teacher,
instead, could show understanding and help her understand the rules in
the White House.
I identified my partner' s feelings correctly because we both
shared some knowledge and identities such as Asians, women and
intercultural professional communicators. We both had cross-cultural
experiences and developed an awareness of the cultural differences.
This was a very good activity to develop the participants'
awareness of cultural differences as well as individual differences.
Each participant's assumption of his/her partner' s feelings
could be at different levels of the culture or at personal levels. The
responses to the same situation may vary culturally and individually. It
would be most interesting and instructive to analyze and understand all
those different levels and identify those caused by the cultural
difference but taken as individual difference. But unfortunately, the
participants were not given any opportunities to discuss or comment on
their activities at the meeting, the trainer wrapped up the exercises by
emphasizing individual differences rather than cultural differences.
Culture seemed not to be an issue nor emphasized in the agenda or
handouts for the first few meetings. Most of the time, it was brought up
by the participants and usually led to heated discussion. When this
happened, the trainer would express his opinion without much feedback to
the participants and then bring the topic back to the agenda such as
listening skills and communication skills.
Stereotyping
It is important to develop professional communicators'
awareness of cultural differences. However, professional communicators
have to be very careful not making judgments about individuals based on
their group membership. This is where stereotyping occurs. As Bennett
(1998) pointed out, whenever cultural differences are discussed, the
allegation of stereotyping is not far behind. Some participants'
stereotyping was clearly revealed in their conversations without their
awareness. Meanwhile, the trainer' s intervention and treatment of
the stereotyping were skillful and implicit, but went unnoticed
unfortunately.
One typical example on stereotyping and "othering" was
already given previously. Please see detailed analysis and discussion
(third issue) in Example 3.
An example related to negative stereotyping was found in the
discussion at the second meeting of the training. One Cambodian-American
participant recounted a story in order to show how different their
culture was from American culture:
Example 4
P1: Hit! It is abuse here. They (Cambodian parents) break the arm,
slap the butt. The consequence is the teacher comes to you. If kids do
something wrong, they do this to teach them this is wrong so that they
will not do it any more. Our (Cambodian) culture is quite different. The
teacher will let the student keep a book on the head and stay there
until school is over. Here (in America), it is abuse. But. (Cambodian)
students sit straight, no pointing to teachers. They show respect.
The trainer raised a question after everyone finished, "How
many of you slapped your children on the face?" No one raised the
hands. Then the trainer continued, "How many of you were slapped by
your parents?" three to four Khmer and Vietnamese American
participants raised their hands.
The negative stereotype lies in the Cambodian-American
participant' s remark described above. Hitting the child or
physically punishing the child seemed to be the common practice in every
Cambodian family and schools when it was described as "our
culture"-the Cambodian national culture. He claimed himself a
Cambodian by using "our" while he showed he never slapped his
kid on the face. Also, he fixed the Cambodian culture by taking
characteristics of some Cambodian people' s belief and behaviors at
certain time, in certain families and in certain circumstances as
something shared and practiced by all the Cambodian people at all times.
Cambodians, therefore, may be considered by other people as uneducated,
non-loving, and barbaric. Social workers holding this view may have
negative assumptions and attitudes towards these immigrant families and
therefore, they may misinterpret these people' s behavior and
impede communication.
In contrast, a Chinese participant gave her opinion:
Example 5
P5: Sometimes, it is not the matter of cultural difference, but the
level of education. Some lower class, uneducated parents in China hit
their kids."
In this remark, Chinese participant was very careful and avoided
overgeneralization or stereotyping by using "sometimes",
"some lower class, uneducated parents." By using those
specific words, she restricted the group of people and avoided imposing
stereotypes on the whole Chinese group.
It was noted that the stereotyping was treated skillfully and
implicitly by the trainer. The trainer listened without any intervention
until everybody finished. The two questions regarding "slapping on
the face" were asked by the trainer at the right moment. His
intention seemed clear: even if it may be perceived as a common practice
that Cambodian parents hit their kids, we can not overgeneralize it
because there are people from the Cambodian families who do not hit
their kids, and there are some people from other cultures who do the
same thing, too. This was a very good practice in the training that
helped avoid stereotyping. Another reason for the trainer doing this
might be to show that growing up in the U.S., one learns a better way to
do things- not hit the kids. Unfortunately, the trainer did not express
these sentiments in the training and, as a result, it went unnoticed.
This led to another example.
A Vietnamese-American participant continued to tell a story about a
Chinese family following the trainer' s intervention. In the end,
she gave her conclusion.
Example 6
P6: Chinese parents love son more than daughters.
The Chinese participant responded immediately by saying that this
may happen in the countryside, but not in the cities in China. Then, I
raised the pitfall of stereotyping by giving an example from my
experience as an international classroom speaker. When I gave
presentations on Chinese culture, a question that American kids often
asked was "Will the baby girl's head be chopped after she is
born in China?" The Vietnamese-American participant asked seriously
as soon as I finished, "Is that true?"
In this example, in spite of the trainer' s previous
intervention, the Vietnamese-American participant was not aware of her
stereotypes nor realized that it might be a potential obstruction in her
work. She may not have realized the meaning of the word
"stereotyping". She tended to hold a stereotypical view
whenever cultural differences were raised. She tended to believe, in her
mind as well as in her discussion, one or two stories in one community
could represent the characteristics of the whole community. She tended
to put people in a clear cut category or group.
If professional communicators stereotype a group they work with,
they may fail to see the truth and also the other aspects of the
individuals, especially the individual's merits. Chinese parents,
for example, might be thought as the most cruel, brutal and inhuman if
she believed beheading was true. This view can result in
miscommunication and misunderstanding of the behavior and speech of the
people he or she works with. Even worse, it may lead to prejudice,
discrimination and resentment, and create conflicts between those who
stereotype and the people who are stereotyped.
Language use
Professional communicators' inappropriate language use may
lead to further conflicts, impede communication and make the
communication even more complicated. Some typical examples were found
and discussed in Example 3. Unfortunately, neither the trainer nor the
participants were aware of their language use and its bad consequence.
By saying "In Asian countries, kids don't challenge their
teachers", the trainer seemed to assume that in all Asian
countries, kids don't challenge the teachers. By saying "This
country is educated", the P3 seemed to claim that the whole country
was educated and would not force other people to change. Further, P3
limited the group to "white people", and as a result,
distinguished white people in terms of education from other races that
may include not only the Japanese-American trainer but also other
non-white participants. Thus, her use of language produced potential
communication barriers and might be interpreted by "others" as
being "ethnocentric" though her intention was to try to
prevent other people from being "ethnocentric".
While stereotyping existed in some participants' thoughts and
conversation, there were some good strategies used in the discussion to
avoid overgenerationization and conflicts. Some participants chose their
words carefully by saying "some Chinese parents" and
"sometimes they do" to limit the size of the group and the
frequency of the behavior. Some stated the fact and reality, "As
far as I know, some people who can speak very good Cambodian cannot
write".
There are some other good strategies used in this training. Compare
and contrast in many aspects was a good way to let the participants see
more of those immigrant families in less negative pictures. When
commenting on the cultural differences, the trainer always emphasized
that it is not right or wrong, good or bad, but only
'different'." Some of the issues were related to the
parents' educational level and their economic status rather than
the national culture. Group discussion in multilingual and multicultural
settings sometimes can be very helpful in avoiding stereotyping. If one
stereotypes a group, another in that group may immediately become
defensive, as in the case of the Chinese culture. By listening to and
speaking from all perspectives, the participants became aware that there
exist cultural differences as well as individual differences, and
similarities.
Implication for future training
There is the need for cross-cultural or intercultural communication
training for professional communicators and practitioners (Brislin &
Yoshida, 1994a, 1994b; Sollon Scollon, 2001; Robinson & Gilmartin,
2002). Gannon' s (1997) research shows that trained participants
reported a significant higher level of cultural awareness. Regarding
"traditional technical training" programs, Scollon &
Scollon (2001) point out that many skills, which are considered as
universal skills, are really ideological values of a particular
discourse system. For some organization who hires training consultant to
"teach common writing skills", considered as universal skills,
what they really want, but do not know they want, is intercultural
communication skills (Scollon & Scollon, 2001). They argue that any
training program has an intercultural or interdiscursive component.
Some values and biases cannot be changed or modified easily.
Moreover, people may not want to change some of their values. However,
being aware of their existence and their effect on their interactions
with others can at least help trainees monitor their ethnocentrism
(Brislin & Yoshida, 1994a) Also, the professional communicators need
to be aware that the act of acquiring something new is inevitably the
act of "losing" something old and a change in basic values; it
is extremely difficult, slow, and rare (Kim, 2001). A person can be
pressed to conform to requirements in social interactions, but cannot be
forced to accept and appreciate the underlying values (Goffman,1961,
cited in Kim, 2001).
Taking immigrant students' cultures and households as learning
resources is a new concept. Hone & Cha's (1999) book opens a
window for American teachers and suggests that immigrant parents such as
Shou Cha can contribute to the process of teaching peace to children,
and making peace among diverse groups in America. In the Funds of
Knowledge for Teaching Project (Gonzalez, 1995), teachers went into
their students' households and communities not as
"teachers" but as "learners" seeking to understand
the way of their living.
The theory and practice described above actually apply to this
training. In a modern society with diverse cultures like the United
States, or in intercultural professional communication, like this
training with the participants of different cultural backgrounds,
invisible culture and our own biases, though hidden and implicit, may
affect our understanding and perception of other people. It is suggested
that intercultural communication should be one of the important
components in the training provided for professional communicators even
though it is a traditional technical training. Awareness of cultural
differences and self-awareness of bias should be developed through some
activities and questions, which the trainer used skillfully in this
training. However, the intercultural issues, when raised, need to be
addressed explicitly and more analysis and discussion on complex and
challenging situations are needed so as to prepare the participants for
more effective communication. In the last few meetings of the training,
more specific situations and feelings of the families related to culture
or acculturation were raised and discussed. Emphasized repeatedly in
this training, communication was the key. Communication is dynamic and
open to change. Through communication, the training content was modified
to meet the participants' needs as the program progressed, which
was also what the trainer suggested the participants could do for their
own workshops.
Teachers take immigrant students' cultures and households as
learning resources. By the same token, immigrant parents, no matter what
education they received, what social status they have, what language
they speak, can contribute, more or less, to parenting skills and
problem solving skills. It is suggested that the professional
communicators could take parents as resources while introducing them the
new knowledge.
Conclusion
This paper began with the question whether the training program on
parenting skills is related to intercultural communication. By using the
current theories and concepts, the author analyzed the
participant's backgrounds and the training content, especially the
issues raised at the training. In spite of its content of general
parenting skills and facilitating skills, this training was closely
related to intercultural communication because it involved some
sensitive issues such as one' s ideological values, habits and
identity. These issues together with professional communicators'
ignoring or unawareness of cultural differences, stereotyping and
inappropriate language use could be potential barriers that impede the
communication either at this training or at the future workshops with
non-English speaking parents. It is suggested that the training programs
like this should increase the professional communicators' awareness
of these barriers, specifically, awareness of cultural difference,
one's own biases and stereotypes, and one's language use,
which are usually hidden and invisible. Future training programs could
include intercultural communication as part of the training component
and address these issues explicitly. Since people change their
identities very slowly and any communication change is a change in
identity, the goal of the training could be to change the
interpretations people make in intercultural communication (Scollon and
Scollon, 2001:284-285).
Note: Jing Sun is currently associate professor at the School of
Foreign Languages, Yunnan University of Nationalities in China. She
earned MS. Ed. in Intercultural Communication in 2006 from the Graduate
School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Her academic interests
lie in intercultural communication, translation, teaching
English/Chinese as a foreign language.
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Jing Sun
Yunnan University of Nationalities, China
Correspondence to:
Jing Sun
4th Floor, Bowen Building
School of Foreign Languages
Yunnan University of Nationalities, Yuhua Campus
Kunming, Yunnan 650550,
P. R. China
Phone: 011-86-871-8220439 (H)
Email: iings07@gmail.com or jings99@yahoo.com