Lesson 1: Culture Shock exercise
Recommended size of the group: Between 8 and 30 people
Aim of lesson: By theory and role play activity the participants can gain knowledge about culture shock and the influence of misunderstanding and to know about cultural dimension and the influence of culture in life. Also, they can understand that being open to new experiences, we can understand others. After all, we are all similar but different in the same time.
Objectives / learning outcomes: The purpose of this exercise is to increase awareness of the ways cultural rules define our communication and our understanding of each other.
By experiencing this simulated exercise, the participants can understand the difficulties for foreigners to communicate with the way that we expect, based on our culture. Also, to analyse their emotion and to understand how people from another culture feel.
It is a stimulated exercise that:
1. Can help to understand how cultural rules affect our understanding/ misunderstanding.
2. Helps to realise how misunderstandings about ways of communicating can lead to prejudice.
Resources: Colourful cards or paper. Presentation of theory and meaning of Social identity, Culture, Culture shock, Geert Hofstede 5 Dimensions of Culture, Colour paper to code each group.
Teaching method: At the beginning present the theory by a small presentation. Then ask the participants what they know about culture shock and the reasons that cause this shock. Ask if anyone lived in another country and encourage him/her to share his/her experience.
Time: 45-50 minutes
Content
1st Step
Meet a person from different culture in a room, say your name but you cannot give any information related to your culture.
You will have 10 minutes to talk to as many people in the room as possible and find common things like films, food and common colour that both of you like.
2nd Step
Split participants in three or four groups and give them one of the colour papers. Explain the meaning of each colour. Then, tell the participants to try and interact with each other (by exchanging a few words, like in an everyday dialogue) fully harmonized with the instructions given below for each of the coloured papers.
Red colour: You must stand as close as possible to others, when you talk. It is important to show that you really care by giving them a hug before you speak.
Green colour: You are not allowed to look anyone directly in the eye. It is rude to do so. Make sure you always look down. People may think you are trying to confront them or start a fight, if you look directly into their eyes.
Yellow colour: You must count to ten in your head before you respond to anyone. It is not polite to answer right away. Do not let others know you are counting. Make it look like you are politely waiting to answer them.
Blue colour: You must never say the word "no". Someone invites you in a party on Friday evening. Find other ways of responding.
DISCUSSION:
Ask the learners to describe the other people in the room in one descriptive word. Write these words and ask from group to categorize them as negative, positive or neutral words.
People often tend to see something different and react in a negative way before they understand it. So, we need time in order to understand cultural differences.
Ask one person of each group to describe the characteristic of their culture.
SUMMARY:
As immigrants and refugees but also people from other cultures, they do not know the characteristics of our culture and we do not recognize their culture, so it is very easy to misunderstand the meaning of anything. This can create culture shock as also Disorientation and Mental Isolation / Hostility phase can have bigger duration.
Evaluation
Ask your students to decide which “colour” was more difficult for them to present and support. Let them explain the reasons why. Then, each group can express its point of view and in the end you could use digital tool , www.mentimeter.com and ask your students to vote for “colours”, so that you could have an overall idea about different behaviours, mindsets and cultures.