Cross cultural training two hour seminar

Cross- cultural training two hour seminar
Alex Case
Slide 1
We are going to look at:
-Gestures/body language
- Common misunderstandings
- Cultural differences
- Reasons for differences
Seminar plan

Introduction- 5 minutes
1. Teacher introduces topics of the day with powerpoint presentation, each point  coming up one at a time, camera starts on teacher, moves to power point
2. “Now we are going to move onto the first point…”. Powerpoint back to only first point “Gestures/ body language”
Gestures/body language- 20 minutes
1. Teacher does a few mimes from worksheet 1, then introduces activity for students. Powerpoint still same as 2 above. Camera on teacher miming, but mic will also need to pick up students guessing.
2. Teacher gives out Worksheet, camera follows teacher around, then stays on students
3. Students mime gestures from “Gestures that vary by country” Worksheet 1 and guess partner’s meaning- one worksheet per two students- Camera on students
4. Teacher gives out more copies of the same worksheet so one per student, camera moves onto teacher
5. Teacher runs through possible gestures with slides- camera between students guessing and asking questions and teacher answering questions??
6. Teacher runs through possible misunderstandings and offensive gestures with slides

Common cultural misunderstandings- 20 minutes
1. Run through first three or four slides from “Common cultural misunderstandings Seminar Version” worksheet as a class- Camera on Powerpoint, but mic will need to pick up both students and teacher
2. Optional- Give out Common Cultural Misunderstandings Worksheet 1 for them to discuss others in pairs- Camera on students
3. Go through them all with slides- Camera on Powerpoint/ teacher

Cultural differences- 10 to 20 minutes- (continuation of stages above)
1. Teacher elicits the general cultural difference involved in each of the Common Cultural Misunderstandings and brings them up one at a time on Powerpoint - body language and gestures, eye contact, directness and indirectness,
2. Bring up other cultural differences on Powerpoint and elicit and give examples for each one: body contact and personal space, gifts, hospitality and visits, taboo topics, gender roles, status, greetings, religion, clothing, weights and measures, forms of address,

Reasons for differences
1. Teacher runs through the possible reasons for a couple of things from “Reasons for cultural differences” Worksheets
2. Give out Worksheets
3. Put reasons up on board and elicit which things each one matches, putting the answer up each time
4. Optional- Point out the language used in worksheet, and students do the last worksheet