Blog #6

1)  A few themes that I noticed throughout our experience were perception, acculturation, and nonverbal communication. All the time my group spent with our family taught all of us to have different perceptions of each situation. My perception at the beginning of our visits drastically changed by the time we were done. At the beginning, I was very nervous to work with a family from the Middle East. Even though I was being judgmental towards them, I had never been around people of that culture so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. My perception of them in the beginning was that they didn't speak English, they didn't like America and they didn't want to be there. I was so far off with my original perception and I now feel that I have a better perception because I have worked with them. My perception now is that they are simply like everyone else. They were very kind and wonderful to us every time we were there. Every time we came they were very welcoming and excited to see us, which felt very good and helped us to be more comfortable with them. Not only did my perception change but I think that my group members perception changed as well. I also think that the family's perception changed somewhat from our first encounter to the last. The other major theme that I noticed while we were there was acculturation. Each time that we visited, we worked on their ability to speak English. They all were very determined to learn and understand what we were trying to teach them. Seeing how far they have come was an amazing experience, because you could see how hard they all were working to learn English. This is an example of acculturation because they continued to follow their previous cultures rules, however they were learning to adapt to this new culture and began learning and accepting these new ways. The last theme that was very apparent to me was nonverbal communication. I have experienced this many times before due to a language barrier. Nonverbal communication is used everywhere and is a very effective way of communicating, especially when you're trying to speak to someone that doesn't speak in the same language. In order for us to effectively get a message across to our family we had to use nonverbal communication because it was the only way they were able to understand most of what we were trying to say to them.
2) This experience has helped shape my future interpersonal interactions because I now know how to deal with being put into a new, uncertain experience with people from different cultures. I know that I need to go into the new opportunity with an open mind, and not allow my previous experiences or perceptions to effect the way that I act in my first encounter. I learned that I need to go into every new experience without taking into account my previous experiences so that I am not biased and am open to whatever this new opportunity has in store for me. After this experience, it makes me look forward to the next opportunity I will have to work with people from different cultures.