Reflective Journal Entry 1

Good day, Ms Yeo and fellow classmates. Today I will be discussing our SES Tutorial 1 in my journal entry.

Today, we discussed cultural intelligence in class, based on 2 articles: one by Glenn Hopis and the other by David Livermore. After a brief discussion, we arrived at the conclusion that cultural intelligence is defined as the ability to function in a multiracial society. We also discussed the four aspects of cultural intelligence: Drive (basic motivation), Knowledge (about other cultures), Strategy (in the form of research conducted and reflections done before and after meeting a person from a different culture) and Action (taken to adapt oneself to a foreign culture). Today, I also experienced a very novel approach to lessons. Ms Yeo (our SES teacher) did not participate much in the discussion itself, instead asking the students questions and getting their responses in order to move the lesson forward. It did require much prior reading and a familiarity with the basics of the topic at hand in order to understand and participate in the discussion.

I found the particular pedagogy very interesting and worthy of mention. In a way, it accomplished much in one swoop. Not only were the students tested on whether they had done the essential readings, but the lack of participation from the teacher also encouraged active and spontaneous participation in the class discussions. Although I was a little nervous at first when emerging into this completely new classroom environment, I still managed to contribute my part towards the discussion, by offering my point of view on a large number of issues and sharing my personal experiences.

That brings me to the next thing. I felt that this teaching method also had another benefit: to allow the teacher to better understand the students based on their personal experiences. Some people in class, including me, shared their experiences about interacting with people from other cultures. The style of the lesson was more personalized and individual, aimed at encouraging students to answer their peer’s questions and the teacher’s questions through personal sharing. This particular emphasis on personal sharing also acted as a sort of quality control: by asking students to share their personal experiences, the students would consciously make an effort to choose the ones that were most relevant and important as they would not want to look bad in front of their classmates.

I also have some thoughts on the lesson content itself. During the lesson, we learnt about the importance of cultural intelligence. Some examples were raised: Before a hypothetical exchange programme to Turkey, how would we make preparations to fit into a vastly different society? During interactions with people from foreign cultures, having cultural knowledge helps us avoid unintentionally causing offence, while improving general communication by adapting our language, tuning ourselves to pick out the words that may or may not be mangled by accent. Additionally, the world is becoming increasingly interconnected. It is highly likely that wherever we go, we will bump into someone from another culture. Having cultural drive allows us to pick out the subtle differences in behaviour, and translate those into appropriate responses. For example, it is best not to talk about pork when we encounter a Muslim, or beef when we meet a Hindu.

Based on my personal experiences with people from other cultures, talking to such a person may require reducing one’s pace of speech, using gestures and other sign language or even speaking entirely in a different language. For example, when I went to Suzhou last December, I spoke almost exclusively in Mandarin as the Suzhou students had a poor standard of English. When I did speak English, I had to simplify my speech and cut out all the typical Singaporean slang to optimise the communication. The Suzhou students did appreciate my attempts, and reciprocated by speaking in more simple Mandarin that I could understand better.

Learning about their culture did pay off as well as I was able to talk with some of them about prominent Chinese and Singaporean singers, such as Jay Chou. I was also exposed to a whole library of songs I had never heard before.

Ultimately, cultural intelligence is not easy to obtain. There will always be those rough moments and tough times. But it is these that make the experience worthwhile, no?

Daniel Tan, 3S105. Signing off.