Lynnette's TESOL103

May 29, 2021 ---TESOL 103 --- Week 6 ---Lynnette Brady Attributional Tendencies in Cultures "There isn't enough blame to go around, there's only enough for you!"  "So, if it tastes good, it is the recipe...and if it tastes bad, it's me?!"

Personal Space Differences  May 29, 2021 --- TESOL 103 --- Week 6     Personal space is a universal need.  It has been observed and studied in animals in the zoo versus animals in the wild.  They call it an escape distance or a flight zone.  And it is neither an emotion nor a behavior.  The space is consistent enough to concisely measure.        Personal space is also a human need.   It does fluctuate depending upon your cultural background and your territorial development.  It can be as extreme as starting a war over territory to as little as cringing when someone gets too close.  And each culture has different interpretations on what is the correct space and silent behavior, including eye contact, between people.      For some people and cultures this personal space extends to personal belongings, but for others it does not.  This can cause clashes between otherwise friends, when they d...

  Individualism vs. Collectivism May 27, 2021.      TESOL 103 Week 6

  May 26, 2021 --Week 6 Differences in Emotional Expressivity        A novelist can express emotion in their characters through an extensive list of adjectives that help us all to realize what that character is feeling.  For example, cheerful, excited, delighted, warm, sympathetic, all express positive feelings which we can all understand.  Conversely, if the author used words such as dreadful, obnoxious, heavy, or resentful, we again would understand the negative emotions this character is feeling.  Even less polarizing emotions have words to describe them such as bashful, stoic, mysterious, or intelligent.  Yet, when we are dealing with people and their emotions--not words--it is much more difficult to interpret.  And when the people are from different cultures which all have different unspoken rules for publicly expressing those emotions, understanding and interpreting cues can be extremely difficult.    So how do we re...

  ??      Cultural Mis-communication

May 18, 2021; Week 5;  Cultural Paradigms      I have lived in 21 different houses; 7 different states (in the United States); 2 different countries on two  different continents; have visited all 50 states in the U.S., and over 30 different countries on 5 of the 7  continents.  In all of these places I have found many, many good people of the world.  I have learned that  "culture" is a system of behavior that helps us act in an accepted and familiar way.  Some of those ways of behavior are different from my own--but learning about them has opened up new ways of eating, new forms of speech, and perhaps even a new way of seeing the world for me.         The barbecue from the South, and the inclusive speech of "you all" became habits hard to break.  Also  the hot dishes from Minnesota, along with the custom of just being "nice" are habits I hope to always  keep.  However, the cultural differences...