Intercultural communication works as a training for volunteers

According to US legal definitions, the term “Intercultural communication” refers that individuals from different cultures, languages and social value share information by communication, especially within an organization composed of various backgrounds. Overseas volunteers, accordingly, will encounters this situation and need to contact people while offering aids. Learning languages of their duty station (place where volunteer assigned) is a main solution to breaking the barrier of this kind of communication. When being familiar with local language, volunteers have ability to exchange opinions with the people and understand how language, culture and perception build the present condition, which is an important part for volunteers to learn. (Bennett, M. J. 1998) Also, Intercultural Sensitivity plays an important role when communicating with different culture; that is, it is crucial for volunteers to have empathy with local people in multi-cultural environment and understand their development goals and agendas based on their culture and custom.

Intercultural Communication for Development, a master thesis written by Keisuke Taketani. He conducted an online survey that measure UNV (United Nation) volunteers’ intercultural sensitivity by the framework of DMIS. DMIS, Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, developed by Milton J. Bennett, is a method to level ones different cultural experiences following by six stages: Denial, Defense, Minimization, Acceptance, Adaptation, and Integration. We can see that how these being-surveyed volunteers are generalized into each stage and see what their attitude and behavior are when interacting with various cultures. For example, a Swiss volunteer mentions that the disabilities of cultural communication and lack of respect for local culture tend to cause mistrust and the feeling of inferiority between volunteers (foreigner) and local community.

     As a whole, we can reach to a conclusion that Intercultural communication is a crucial part for people engaging in activities that need to contact with various cultures, especially for overseas volunteers. However, according to Taketani’s online survey, by asking the question: What kind of Intercultural training or support have you received from UNV? A few volunteers would take courses for only gaining country-specific information, yet, ten of 48 volunteers said they would not have any pre-training: they go to their duty station directly. Only rare instance have chance to have training include intercultural communication. It seems that the awareness for intercultural sensitivity isn’t much valued by relevant organizations and volunteers themselves. In the introductory book Basic Concept of Intercultural Communication, Interculturalist Milton J. Bennett penetrates to the core question of “How do people understand one another when they do not share a common cultural experience?” (1998:1).

Reference

Legal Definition legal term dictionary, available from

http://definitions.uslegal.com/

Keisuke Taketani (2008) Intercultural Communication for Development, retrieved fromhttp://dspace.mah.se/bitstream/handle/2043/7099/ComDev%20KT%20Final.pdf?sequence=1

Bennett, M. J. (1998) Intercultural Communication: A Current Perspective in Bennett, Milton J. (ed) Basic Concepts of Intercultural communication. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press

Reflection1

The big problems I need to revise in my two annotations are the correct use of citation and annotation writing. First, in the citation part, I should put “year” in the back of person I quote in the article. Second, when taking example from other people’s article, I should be more specific on the people’s name, and avoid vague one like “some people” or “their”. Third, if there a picture in my annotation, I should put “Figure__” below it and it will be clear when making example for that picture.

    In annotation writing part, according to Professor Emma(2008), here’s the guidelines:

1. Who is the author? Is the source authoritative and professional?

2. Where is it published? Are you the target audience?

3. When is it published? Is it recent or dated?

4. Why does the author write this paper (to inform, persuade, or entertain)? What is the tone of writing?

5. What is the issue/problem? Does the title forecast the thesis?

6. What are the writer's points of view or values? How do the arguments affect you?

   7. What creative techniques are used to attract you? Are the author's rhetorical choices (comparisons and contrasts, convincing examples and critiques, etc) effective?

8. What are the essay's strengths and weakness? What can be added to the essay? 

I realize that I just read all of the article and summarize them, instead of choosing the part I need and picking one side to stand on, to argue with in my annotation 1. I should fist exam what this article emphasizes on and if this article has something to do with my main topic and to become one of the support. Also, professor points out that both my annotation deals with the same theme : the defect of overseas volunteers. Annotation 1 talks about the influence untrained volunteer does in developing area, and annotation 2 is about what short-term volunteer has lacked of. The former can be the cause to the latter, which can be combined together to be one annotation.

   Overall, in my annotation 3, in addition to remember the system and form of citation and annotation writing, I should find more sources and choose carefully part of them to correspond to my topic: Should a short-term volunteer be trained before they go abroad? I will find some sources that are about the training of intercultural communication and exam a particular organization’s operation and how they train their volunteers. Also, so far, the source I have found lack of a more academic structure, namely, my essay should be based on an academic theory that can support all of my annotation and the statement I propose. I hope I can make progressed on my next annotation.