I really enjoyed the readings from Figuring Out Foreigners. I found it interesting how the author was able to communicate ideas about cultures by comparing the extremes of cultural behaviors. We talked a little about nonverbal communication the second week in class, and it was again mentioned in this reading. I had already thought about how signals could have the same or different meanings in different cultures, but I didn't think about what might happen if someone accidentally used nonverbal communication when simply making a hand gesture that doesn't have a meaning in their own language. This reading also made me question which cultures are considered individualist and which ones are collectivist. I definitely think that the US (or at least the East Coast) is more of an individualist culture, with people working towards their own goals rather than the goals of the group. The point about time is also extremely important. I always just thought that all cultures were monochronic, but discovered how the US is more monochronic than many other cultures when I studied abroad. While in France last year, I realized that French culture is more polychronic than the US. In France, it was almost rude to arrive on time. When invited to a dinner party at 20:00, guests were actually expected to arrive around 20:30 or 21:00. I'd like to find out about how the Persian-speaking cultures treat time, and will be sure to ask Wadia or Maroof about this in our next meeting. I really never thought about the approaches of indirect/direct communication. Now that I think of it, while studying abroad, a lot of the American students found that French people were rude. This mainly came about because they were very direct towards us, always saying exactly what they meant and not trying to sugarcoat or insinuate the true meaning. If they thought that someone had a bad French accent, they would laugh or say how silly it sounded, whereas in American we were used to people calmly giving us tips and implying how to improve.
From this reading, I've seen how important it is to learn nonverbal communication along with verbal. It really is important aspect of how different cultures communicate, and has the possibility to lead to many misunderstandings and behavior that could be considered rule or insulting.
I'm starting to make a lot of noticeable progress in my language learning. I've continued to watch newsclips on BBC Persia, and have noticed that I'm getting used to the sound of the language. For last week's meeting with Maroof, we were going to go over introductions. Conveniently, I was just at that point in Rosetta Stone, so to prepare, I simply used Rosetta Stone, which taught me how to say "My name is_____" "What is your name?" "I came from____" and "Where do you come from?". I also learned the Persian names for many countries. During the session with Maroof, we practiced saying these things together, and are now able to have basic conversations. In the next few days I'd like to record an artifact with another Persian student in which we will have a conversation using everything that we have learned. Maroof also had us practice some reading. He would write short words on the board and then have us sound out the word.
In my meeting with Wadia, I again practiced having these conversations. Additionally, I told Wadia that I wanted to practice my writing. To do this, she would tell me a word or phrase that was on my new vocab list and I would then try to write it, having her correct me. I found that practicing like this really made the letters make more sense in my mind, and it got easier and easier to spell words. To continue this practice, I've been writing my vocab list over and over, and then adding new words.
This week, I am going to work on: counting, telling the time, and saying the date and days of the week.
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