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Part 1
INCA survey
The Intercultural Competency Assessment (INCA) survey was probably the first survey that I have taken that brought to light my intercultural proficiencies. Looking at the results of this quiz, it was easy to understand so that I could understand the different traits I can improve. The first elements known as Tolerance of Ambiguity validates how well I can stay focused and stay in uncertainty, or staying with the question, despite the discomfort of not knowing the answer, or not knowing where the question is headed. It requires relinquishing control, even though a solution isn’t always guaranteed, to make room for new and emerging connections to crystalize into a clear direction. Wherever there is a lack of clearness it defines how well I resolve the situation. Based on the survey, I scored a six on this component, which means I’m at the level of intermediate competence. This means I can appreciate and adapt to the differences in intercultural encounters based on my own personal experiences in life with others from different cultures. In the next element, Behavioral Flexibility, I was also awarded a six. Behavioral flexibility helps determine one’s ability to adapt from their traditional fashion, to a more untraditional fashion in order to deter certain conflicts of procedure and expectation. When correlating my score with the element itself, I believe I am able to discern when I need to be flexible with my behavior.
In the communicative awareness category I scored pretty high. This element exposes how attentive I am of what information I’m putting out to others. I have a noble sense of interpreting people’s body language. Based on people’s body language I can tell if the information I’m putting out is making them feel bad, neutral, or positive. The survey also revealed to me that, I am very mindful of circumstances where confusions may arise through dissimilarities in language, movements, mannerisms, and any other untraditional way of communication in a productive manner.
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Part 2
The three critical incidents that I have selected are occurrences where some type of misinterpretation or problem, resulting in a total misunderstanding and a communication breakdown. The first critical incident I elected is incident fourteen. A man was walking past a cemetery when he noticed something very odd. To make sure he wasn’t mistaken, he went in to take a closer look. He was very surprised to see two names on the tombstone he was looking at. One was the name of someone who had already died, and next to it was the name of someone who was still living. The tombstone had a birth date but no death date on it. He just couldn’t believe it! The first thing the man notices are the two names on a tombstone. The man notices that only one of the individuals listed on the tombstone is departed. There are many assumptions in this case that can be made such as; what part of the country is this person from and where is he now? In some country’s customs it may be customary to place the husband and wife next to each other when they die. In the United States, peoples have even started to pre-plan their deaths. They are choosing to set up their headstones and burial plots ahead of time. When you speak about death, for some nations it is a sensitive subject for most cultures in North and South America and a less sensitive subject for some places like China. In America for instance, some people choose to be positioned next to their partner when they perish. This method of placing a label on a tombstone before you expire can save the family money when it comes to funeral expenses. Also, if this option of setting up the tombstone early is taken, the person will have the tombstone built with only a birth date.
The second critical incident I have decided to examine is critical incident number seven. Len teaches the evening TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) class. One day there was a conflict between a student who wanted to do more listening practice in class and a student who wanted to focus only on grammar. The next day, one of the two students came to Len’s office to talk to him about the class. She told him that she thought they had studied enough grammar and that they needed more listening practice. She assured him that she was not trying to tell him what to teach. A week later she invited Len to come to her home so that she could show him some- thing. He did not go. Then she sent him an e-mail, thanking him for his teaching and complimenting him on his looks. This made him very uncomfortable, so he made a conscious attempt to avoid her outside of class. This occurrence is happening because Mr. Len’s behavioral flexibility low. Rather than neglecting the youngster’s invite to her home, he should have contacted the parents of the child. It’s apparent that the child does not understand the teacher to student relationship. Good relationships between teachers and students have been associated with increased motivation and academic achievement.
This situation of visiting the little girl’s household and complementing him on his looks, was defiantly a sign of the student trying to build an inappropriate relationship with Mr. Len. The third critical incident I have selected is critical incident number one. A student was not satisfied with her new class. She wanted to move to a higher class. First, she consulted the student advisor who said that she could not move up at this time. The student, still unsatisfied with this answer asked the other student advisor. The second student advisor gave her the same answer. Next, she made an appointment to see the coordinator of the Language Training Program.
The coordinator consulted the student’s teacher and the student’s test scores and explained to the student that, according to the guidelines, she was unable to move to the next level at that time. The student was still not satisfied and made an appointment to see the dean and then intended to talk to the president of the college. Meanwhile, the teacher couldn’t under- stand why the student did not just accept her decision. She also could not understand why the student could not see that there were policies in place so that no matter how high up she went in the college hierarchy, it would not change the outcome for her. In this critical incident a young girl apparently from different country is unhappy with her existing assignment in her new class. After speaking to everybody that she could, she comes to the decision that the only way move up in class is to finish her current grade level. In this critical incident, I have observed that in the girl’s country that the cultural alignment behind work ethic and the relationship between teachers/ students may be very different. Students every year seem to go through this same type of experience. The education systems in China and in the United States are about as different as two systems can get, though both strive for and denote success at the highest levels. It is my conclusion that her knowledge of having all her prerequisites for the class she was trying to get into may have not been met, and this caused her not to be eligible for the next higher class. Regrettably for her, it also appears that some of her credits did not transfer over to the current college.
References
Huggins, M. (2012). Gone but not forgotten: sporting heroes, heritage and graveyard commemoration. Rethinking History, 16(4), 479-495. doi:10.1080/13642529.2012.697261
Historic Rock Castle. (n.d.). Retrieved April 24, 2015, from http://www.historicrockcastle.com/Blog/October_2013/Cemetery_Tip__Dates_upon_a_TombstoneWILKINS, J. (2014). Good Teacher-Student Relationships: Perspectives of Teachers in Urban High Schools. American Secondary Education, 43(1), 52-68.
Butcher, M. M. (2006). A Distance Education Model Used Across Cultures: An American Degree in China. International Journal Of Learning, 12(10), 287-292.
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