For this assignment, you must interview someone from another country and ask them about which aspects of Foreign to Familiar their country connects with, and, how that compares to your home country.
ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS:
For this assignment, you must interview someone from another country and ask them about which aspects of Foreign to Familiar their country connects with, and, how that compares to your home country. You must ask your interviewee questions about every aspect of the book (which will be listed below), and you also must include the interview questions you ask in the response paper. I do not care how you list their responses — feel free to summarize or write verbatim.
As a reminder, below are the aspects of Foreign to Familiar.
Hot Climate (Relationship) vs. Cold Climate (Task-Oriented)
Indirect vs. Direct
Group vs. Individualistic
Inclusion vs Privacy
Concepts of Hospitality
Low vs. High Context
Orientation Around the Clock — Event vs. Clock
For each of the 7 categories you must ask questions on the following 3 aspects and provide the answers in your assignment answers:
1) Find out where their culture fits in each category
2) Where that compares to the USA
3) Provide examples from their perspective or your conversation with them to back this.
You should ask them questions that create cross-cultural comparisons between their culture and the culture here in the USA. Consider — if they are living here, they’ve made a lot of observations on what is different and what is similar. So for each of the 7 categories listed below, create open-ended questions which get them to discuss how things are different in their culture and ours.
Is their culture Individualistic or Group Oriented? What about compared to the USA? What examples did they give to prove this point? What is different in their country?
Is their culture Direct or Indirect? What about compared to the USA? What examples did they give to prove this point? What is different in their country?
This means you must explain the concept of each question, and, come up with an open-ended question that leads them to answer the question. After asking the question, always ask them, “Can you give me an example?”
How I’ll Grade You: Effort. Given you have 7 total categories, each with 3 separate aspects, if I see in your paper for the “Direct vs Indirect question, all you write is “they are direct,” or some other short one-word response that shows: (A) you obviously didn’t try (B) you didn’t explain the topics to the interviewee or (C) you didn’t take the time to ask them for a comparison from their culture to yours; you will lose points.
I want to see that you actually tried to learn and were prepared. So long as you complete the assignment earnestly and it’s at least 1 full page, you will be given full credit. I don’t want to you to stress — I want you to have fun!
Be prepared: While on the surface this seems easy, crafting questions for your interview is quite tricky. I recommend you go back through the material, the book, and the lectures to refresh yourself on the material so that when you craft your questions, you’ll ask smart, open-ended questions that get the interviewee talking a lot about their culture and comparing it to ours.
If you simply ask them, “Is your culture direct or indirect?” You will get a one-word answer back from them.
If you ask them, “Is your culture more direct or indirect than what you’ve experienced in the USA, and how? Can you think of some examples you’ve noticed?” You’ll get more information. But this isn’t really enough — because first you have to explain what direct vs indirect means so the interviewee understands. In order to do that, you have to give examples based on scenarios you can pull from the book or from your life.
If they still don’t understand, you should have multiple questions pre-crafted ready for this situation. So then you could ask something like, “Ok. Got it. In your culture, do you try to ask warm questions like “How are you doing?” before talking to someone to create a friendly environment, or do you prefer to get straight to the point? Can you give me an example? How is this different than in the USA?”
Note: If your interviewee says, “We’re the same,” you will need to be prepared to ask scenario-based follow-up questions to pry into that and see where you can find the differences. How do you do that? By reading through the chapters of Foreign to Familiar as you prepare the interview, take note of her stories, and create an open-ended question that gets to the heart of each topic so you’ll be prepared for a roadblock. But if you do this and they still say “No, we’re the same,” then you should ask, “OK, but if you had to pick how you lean one way or the other, even if it’s 49.9% vs 51.1%, which way would you lean and why?” If they STILL SAY they can’t answer, OK, you can move on. But please show on your assignment the follow-up questions you asked so that I can see you tried.
One Exception: Oreintation Around the Clock. For this category, there are simply some cultures that are similar with how they orient themselves around the clock. If you’re from the USA and you interview someone from England, you might find there’s little difference, for example, in the orientation around the clock. So (A) Don’t overstress this. Sometimes the answer actually is, “We’re the same.” But more importantly, (B) Read the pro-tip below…
Pro Tip: If you want this whole interview to be easier, interview someone from a country with a culture that is very different from yours! In this way you’ll get the assignment done quicker, you’ll learn more, and the information you’re learning will be more clear at the end. It’s win-win-win. If you’re from the USA and you interview someone from Canada, it will be harder to analyze the nuanced differences than interviewing someone from China.
Requirements: 1 page 1.5 spacing
Subject:
Writing
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