Com_200_Six_Cultures_and_Nonverbal_Communication_Skills

Six Cultures and Students’ Perceptions Concerning Nonverbal and Verbal Communication COM 200 Instructor Jennifer Lloyd February 28, 2011 Six Cultures and Students’ Perceptions Concerning Nonverbal and Verbal Communication Language gives humans the ability to transmit their culture, adapt to the cultures as changes occur, and even to promote change within these cultures. We all have heard the saying that different cultures have different truths. Many would argue that there is only one accepted truth among people. Over the course of time, people have proven that this universal truth was no longer true. Culture is the ever-changing values, traditions, social and political relationships and the world-view created and shared by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors. (which can include a common history, geographic location, language, social class and/or religion. (Hybels & Weaver, 2007) The universal moral truth does not exist because it is impossible for everybody everywhere to believe in common ideas; the world's cultures are far too diverse for this. In the essay below, six cultures are examined and student perceptions of their teacher’s nonverbal and verbal communication are put to the test. The six countries are Australia, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Taiwan and the United States. The students are, to the best of their ability, remembering the lengths that their worst and best professors or teachers went to when communicating, both non-verbally and verbally. The whole article served to show how nonverbal and verbal communication are associated with effective teaching but in varying degrees depending on where you live. Across cultures, best professors were perceived to employ more nonverbal expressiveness, relaxed movement, in-class conversation, and out-of-class communication than worst professors. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) Effective teaching involves one hundred percent involvement in communication. The way a teacher communicates, or is perceived to communicate, is widely considered to be an important determinant of students' attitudes toward a class and a teacher (Nussbaum, 1992). The present study addresses these issues by examining differences in the degree to which best and worst professors from six countries were perceived to use certain forms of teacher communication as well as determining which specific forms of communication discriminate between best and worst professors in each of these countries. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) The following dimensions, Low versus High Power Distance Cultures, Contact versus Noncontact Cultures, Collectivist versus Individualistic Cultures, and Low versus High Context Cultures were chosen because they had the largest contradictions among these categories. In the dimension of Low versus High Power Distance Cultures, Mexico ranked the highest among the six countries with the United States ranking fairly low. Other countries ranking low were Australia and Sweden. According to the article, the lower the ranking, the more friendly and accessible the teachers seemed to be with their students. I, for one, enjoy the freedom that comes with the friendly teachers both my children have and also the instructors at Ashford University. In the dimension of Contact versus Noncontact Cultures, the measure of how people typically stand close, touch frequently, and are nonverbally expressive; and noncontact cultures, wherein people generally stand farther apart, touch infrequently, and are more emotionally reserved. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) The U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and Australia have moderate contact orientations (P. Andersen, 2008; McDaniel & Andersen, 1998). Mexico, once again, ranks the highest. I am sure that most would expect the results that Japan and Asia scored the lowest in contact. You do not have to travel to Japan to experience the non-contact culture that is seemingly present in every Japanese restaurant and home. Every experience I have ever had with an Asian teacher has been one of complete and utter coolness and the foreknowledge that she / he is not there to be your friend. Collectivist versus Individualistic Cultures involves distinguishing between cultures that are on two very different spectrums. In an individualistic culture, your privacy and personal space are very important along with the need to say what you please where your opinions are concerned. On the other hand, the collectivist culture finds its roots in tradition and working together in peace. The United States and Australia are very individualistic in nature and culture. Perhaps the United States standing on the statement of one nation, under God, individual with liberty and justice for all does show in our teaching approaches. Taiwan won the collectivist award for scoring the most in this area. In the Low versus High Context Cultures, like Australia, Sweden, and the U.S., people emphasize the spoken word, and meaning is derived primarily from explicit, oral communication. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) In high context cultures, non-verbal communication is very important. These cultures are Mexico, Taiwan and Japan. Things such as a handshake can mean many things in many different cultures. In the case of the United States, people in our culture rely on verbal communication more so than non-verbal communication. This all wraps up in four areas of effective teaching in any of these cultures. These areas are: (1) nonverbal expressiveness, (2) relaxed movement, (3) in-class conversation, and (4) out-of-class communication. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) Several notable findings during the research were found. The findings are as follows: * Students from high-context, collectivistic cultures may be comfortable with out-of-class communication because it allows for more one-on-one interaction where students can attend to subtle communication cues and start to feel more like a community. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) * There are cross-cultural differences in the extent to which students perceive their best and worst teachers to use in-class conversation, such that U.S. and Australian students perceive their teachers to use more in-class conversation than do students from Japan and Taiwan. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) * Students from the U.S. and China came up with different profiles of behaviors representing effective communication practices by teachers. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) * In-class conversation may be perceived as less valuable in high power distance cultures because teachers' opinions would be considered to be superior to students' opinions. If this is the case, then in-class conversation would probably not be a good discriminator of best and worst teachers in a high power distance country. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) * Thus, some behaviors that are critical discriminators between best and worst teachers in a low-context culture may not be as important in a high-context culture, and vice versa. (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010) In conclusion, when I think of my best teacher, I think of the perceptions I had of her and how she seemed to have the talent of always knowing what we needed from her as students. If I was from Japan or Mexico, the perceptions I might have of my best teacher would be dramatically different because of the cultural differences and how communication is perceived and used in that culture. The research used perceptions of nonverbal expressiveness, relaxed movement, in-class conversation, and out-of-class communication are associated with best teachers across six different cultures (Georgakopoulos & Guerrerro, 2010). The one thing I noticed throughout the article is that whatever the culture, whatever the subject, the best teachers are the ones who teach knowledge from their brain but also teach from their heart. You could say that the best of the best use both non-verbal and verbal communication to make their job easily done. References Andersen, P. A. (2008). Nonverbal communication: Forms and functions (2nd ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Georgakopoulos, A., & Guerrero, L.. (2010). Student Perceptions of Teachers' Nonverbal and Verbal Communication: A Comparison of Best and Worst Professors across Six Cultures. International Education Studies, 3(2), 3-16.  Retrieved February 27, 2011, from Research Library. (Document ID: 2225518331). Hybels, S., & Weaver, R. L. (2007). Communicationg Effectively Eighth Edition . Boston: McGraw Hill Companies Inc. McDaniel, E. & Andersen, P. A. (1998) Intercultural patterns of tactile communication: A field study. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 22, 59-76. Nussbaum,J. D. (1992). Effective teacher behaviors. Communication Education, 41, 167-180.