Attribute 4: Practise and continue to develop their own cultural competence
Having spent the majority of my career abroad, I have had to constantly build my cultural competence. A full background of my career since leaving New Zealand can be found in my biography:
When I first left the voluntary / not-for-profit sector, and moved to Hungary, I had to adapt to a new cultural environment. First, there was the challenge of a different language. As a teacher I had to change the pace of my delivery and had to be more conscious about whether my students were truly understanding what was being taught, by constant checking and asking students to reiterate learning in their own words. In addition, I made the effort to learn Hungarian myself, registering in group courses at a beginner level, before studying at higher levels privately. Making the effort to learn the language of my host nation showed my students I was making a conscious effort to integrate within their culture.
A copy of my registration for one of these courses can be found below:
A copy of my registration for one of these courses can be found below:
interclub_reg_form_2x2.pdf | |
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While in Hungary, I had to develop my cultural competence to work with students of a new culture, but my experiences in Qatar have taken this learning to a new level. In Hungary, I dealt mainly with culturally homogeneous groups made up of people of Hungarian ethnicity, in Qatar I have worked with groups of extreme cultural heterogeneity. Qatar is a unique environment for education, with the local Qatari population representing only 12% of the total population (Snoj, 2014). As such the majority of Qatar's population is an expatriate workforce and their families, meaning that on a daily basis I teach to very diverse groups from around the world. As an example of the kind of student diversity I have managed, one of my key responsibilities is the delivery of mandatory orientation education for all new staff joining the organisation. Below you can see a table of the participants I have had as students for this orientation education:
Working with such cultural diversity has led to many new considerations in the application of my teaching practice.
Firstly many cultural backgrounds have different expectations from learning environments. A recent course I delivered titled "Creative Problem Solving and Decision Making" highlighted this difference. The course was designed to briefly introduce frameworks for problem solving and decision making, while giving students a lot of time to apply these frameworks to case studies or reflect on their own work practice and how they could apply these frameworks. The evaluations I received from this course varied significantly. A quote from the evaluation form from one of my Qatari students who rated the course negatively stated "I did not learn new skills... input was sought from participants, however the instructor did not propose ideal best case practice", while another quote from an American student who rated the course positively stated "Ryan is a skilled and enthusiastic instructor who encourages active participation of the group... the topic was applicable to my role at Sidra (and for general life decision making as well!)". Reflecting on this experience I realised that my course design which relied heavily on group discussion was appreciated by some cultural backgrounds, while others expected my teaching style to be more teacher-driven. I have since adapted this course to balance these perspectives, but it serves as a good illustration of the cultural uniqueness in each group I teach to.
Secondly, language still remains a significant barrier for many of my students. Officially English is the language of my current workplace, but that does not mean English is spoken to the same level by all staff, or even that English from one country will be understood clearly by an English speaker from another country. An important factor is speed as identified by Robb & Gillon (2007) who identified that New Zealand speakers of English spoke faster than their Australian, American and British counterparts. Attendees of courses at my current workplace always laugh when I introduce a new course, as I demonstrate the actual speed I can talk at, before slowing down to the speed I have adjusted to working in foreign environments. It serves as a way to break the ice with students, but also illustrates a key point that if students do not understand something I say they should feel free to stop me and ask questions.
And one of the last major cultural considerations I have found in Qatar is selecting appropriate activities. I have had to refresh my inventory of group activities, as I consider the cultural appropriateness of activities in Qatar, particularly mixed gender activities. Many of my former activities may have involved some amount of physical contact, which is inappropriate in my current setting as the religious values of my Muslim students value a woman's modesty, and as such physical contact between male and females is discouraged. I have had to adjust activities accordingly to meet this cultural expectation. An example includes an activity I have used in my workshop on effective communication. The intended learning outcome of the activity is a recognition of the different types of noise people experience in communication, including not just external noise (i.e. other people, background noise, etc) but also internal noise (i.e. self-doubt, over thinking, etc). Previously I had used an exercise where people would hold on to another student while they were led blindfolded through a series of obstacles. This would demonstrate not only the need to focus on someone's voice but also internal noise generated through the fear of being blindfolded. Instead I replaced this activity with the one attached below, where people have to focus on instructions to draw a bug exactly how it is described. Again the participant needs to focus on what is said around background noise, but also have to deal with internal noise which may be generated through lack of confidence in drawing ability, or focusing on words that may be unfamiliar, etc. This exercise has the same intended outcomes without the physical contact.
Firstly many cultural backgrounds have different expectations from learning environments. A recent course I delivered titled "Creative Problem Solving and Decision Making" highlighted this difference. The course was designed to briefly introduce frameworks for problem solving and decision making, while giving students a lot of time to apply these frameworks to case studies or reflect on their own work practice and how they could apply these frameworks. The evaluations I received from this course varied significantly. A quote from the evaluation form from one of my Qatari students who rated the course negatively stated "I did not learn new skills... input was sought from participants, however the instructor did not propose ideal best case practice", while another quote from an American student who rated the course positively stated "Ryan is a skilled and enthusiastic instructor who encourages active participation of the group... the topic was applicable to my role at Sidra (and for general life decision making as well!)". Reflecting on this experience I realised that my course design which relied heavily on group discussion was appreciated by some cultural backgrounds, while others expected my teaching style to be more teacher-driven. I have since adapted this course to balance these perspectives, but it serves as a good illustration of the cultural uniqueness in each group I teach to.
Secondly, language still remains a significant barrier for many of my students. Officially English is the language of my current workplace, but that does not mean English is spoken to the same level by all staff, or even that English from one country will be understood clearly by an English speaker from another country. An important factor is speed as identified by Robb & Gillon (2007) who identified that New Zealand speakers of English spoke faster than their Australian, American and British counterparts. Attendees of courses at my current workplace always laugh when I introduce a new course, as I demonstrate the actual speed I can talk at, before slowing down to the speed I have adjusted to working in foreign environments. It serves as a way to break the ice with students, but also illustrates a key point that if students do not understand something I say they should feel free to stop me and ask questions.
And one of the last major cultural considerations I have found in Qatar is selecting appropriate activities. I have had to refresh my inventory of group activities, as I consider the cultural appropriateness of activities in Qatar, particularly mixed gender activities. Many of my former activities may have involved some amount of physical contact, which is inappropriate in my current setting as the religious values of my Muslim students value a woman's modesty, and as such physical contact between male and females is discouraged. I have had to adjust activities accordingly to meet this cultural expectation. An example includes an activity I have used in my workshop on effective communication. The intended learning outcome of the activity is a recognition of the different types of noise people experience in communication, including not just external noise (i.e. other people, background noise, etc) but also internal noise (i.e. self-doubt, over thinking, etc). Previously I had used an exercise where people would hold on to another student while they were led blindfolded through a series of obstacles. This would demonstrate not only the need to focus on someone's voice but also internal noise generated through the fear of being blindfolded. Instead I replaced this activity with the one attached below, where people have to focus on instructions to draw a bug exactly how it is described. Again the participant needs to focus on what is said around background noise, but also have to deal with internal noise which may be generated through lack of confidence in drawing ability, or focusing on words that may be unfamiliar, etc. This exercise has the same intended outcomes without the physical contact.
drawing_bugs.pdf | |
File Size: | 45 kb |
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I have received positive feedback about the cultural appropriateness of my teaching delivery including the below feedback from one of my Qatari students who has also been learning English as a foreign language while attending my courses:
The development of my cultural competence is an ongoing journey as I continue to learn and adapt from my teaching experiences. This area interests me so much that I have recently enrolled in the University of Southern Queensland to complete a Doctorate of Business Administration, with my research focused on
the impact of multicultural environments on workplace learning effectiveness in Qatar. A copy of my initial research proposal can be found here:
the impact of multicultural environments on workplace learning effectiveness in Qatar. A copy of my initial research proposal can be found here:
preliminary_research_project_outline_form_-_completed.doc | |
File Size: | 99 kb |
File Type: | doc |
While the above examples relate to cultural diversity from an ethnicity perspective, I have also experienced diversity in other forms. An example of which is computer literacy. In my current workplace, the majority of our staff are highly educated medical professionals who are very familar with computers. However some of our staff are less confident with computer usage, including number of our support services staff. This led to challenges in the delivery of our orientation curriculum outlined in Case Study 1, as the primary means for delivering education required for all staff was through eLearning. In order to cater to the needs of diverse learners, we developed classroom sessions with the same content so that learners could access the needed education in a medium that worked for them. While eLearning catered to the need for most of our staff, we needed to make sure that learning was accessible to all our staff.