Each year, onsite, participants on the onsite Manchester MA TESOL and MA EdTech & TESOL programmes, we run an intercultural simulation intended to make them reflect on the ‘culture’ of the programme and how they are adjusting to this new academic culture. As a follow-up activity, we ask them to undertake an ethnography of the programme as a means of surfacing the characteristics (values and behaviours) of the programme. Here is the rubric for this task:
Based on your experience of the intercultural simulation we did in the Academic Forum session, as well as your subsequent reflections on your experience of ‘becoming’ a participant on the onsite MA course, please add some comments about: 1) what has happened, 2) how you have felt, 3) getting used to the rules (marked or unmarked) associated with being a student on the course, or 4) anything else that fits this broad remit.
We invite participants to add their micro-ethnographic accounts here.
This is not exactly a reply but it came from the simulation game.
Ethnography
17th of September: Arrival in Manchester.
Oh dear! It is true. The weather here is like having God crying all day. And to think that in Cyprus we have very serious drought problems right now as it rarely rains. Scientists say that our land is turning into desert. Just look how much it rains here! I really need to get an umbrella!
Induction week:
My MA is so interesting. I really like learning new staff, especially about Technology. I can’t wait until the courses begin. (During the meeting game with Julian) My master’s director is Garry. The professors’ names are Susan, Richard, Rod, Dianne and mpla…mpla…mpla…
Oou, I can’t remember the rest.
An hour later during the break
Anyway, I want to ask someone if I can attend classes in an English school, you know just to see how they teach here. Let’s see now. That guy with the shirt must be Rob. (Taking a closer look) Yes, he is… (After a second thought) but I am not going to ask him. He mustn’t know. He is too young to know about these things. What about the one with the striped shirt and the sweater? Xm! He must know what I should do. O.K what was his name, again? He must be Juup. No, Juup is the one that I spoke on the phone with but I haven’t seen him until now. He missed the meeting today, also!
Ah that’s Gary. O.K I am going to go there now and ask him.
Me: Eeeee….. (Anxiously thinking: What is his surname? What is his surname? I can’t remember!)…. Eeeeee…
Gary: (Finally turning over) Yes?
Me: I wanted to ask if we are going to visit an English school during the course ….eeeeee just to see how they use Technology and multimedia….
Gary: (Thinking a little bit) that’s not in our program but we can arrange something if you want to?
Me: Yes, that would be great. Thank you! (Ou, that was embarrassing).
Personal tip: Learn your professor’s surnames! You will need them.
Assigning personal tutors
(Checking my e-mails early in the morning and clicking on the first one). This is from the University. Good! They are telling us about our personal tutor. We are supposed to have a meeting with them this week. I wonder who is going to be my tutor. Oh, I’ve got Susan Brown and she asks me if I can meet her on Monday.
O.K I can so I should reply to her that it is all right:
Dear Susan or is it better to say Mrs. Brown? How should I start? Well, she only wrote Susan at the end so I am going to put only her first name. I don’t know, however, if I am allowed to do that because if I did that in Cyprus or later on to my University teachers in Thessaloniki, they would say that I am disrespectful the least and “punish” me the most, unfortunately. I don’t want them to think that I am misbehaving or that I am arrogant, because I am not.
Decision: I am only going to write that there is not problem in meeting her on Monday and that’s it. I am not going to write any names. Not even mine.
Meeting with my personal tutor
(Outside Susan’s office. I knock at the door and I wait for her to finish her meeting with Vincent, another MA student. Going in after a few minutes).
Me: Hello! Mrs. Susan …Brown?
Susan: Yes, come in Anna and please call me Susan.
Me: O.K (Thinking: I don’t think she means that. She’s just being polite! I don’t want to call her Susan. It’s not nice. I am going to avoid calling her name at any case as I did until now with the rest of them and just get into the gist). The rest of the conversation continued without any name-calling from my side. I didn’t feel comfortable at all.
Comment
As I was later pointed out, calling your teacher by his/her first name in Britain is not disrespectful at all. However, if my students called me by my first name without using “Miss” or “Mrs” that would be considered a pretty good excuse to send someone straight to the principle’s office. It is regarded that this informality in addressing your teachers, breaks down the barriers of the distance that “ought” to be kept between the teachers and the students, between the “authoritative side” of the society and the non “authoritative side”.
In my teaching context we usually use the plural form when we are addressing our teachers and we are always including Mr. or Mrs. with either their first or their last name. Personally, I find it more difficult to call my professors by their first name, than to cope with all the reading tasks that I need to carry out every week. The cultural background and the behavioral habits’ that are “installed” in each of us, are the most difficult to erase or alter. Even if you decide that the situation you have to adjust yourself is only temporary. For a lot of people, it is still difficult to switch off the button to what they have already learnt or used to do.
To my view, differences in manner and communication can cause a cultural shock to people, especially in an academic context. People are not aware of the various academic contexts that exist and they expect to come across with the same context they had experienced before during their studies. Therefore, the least they expect something, the more surprised they get when they encountered it. They are considered the new players in a game which for others is already old and natural. Consequently, people can develop several feelings, sometimes positive ones as they might feel liberated and creative in their new environment and sometimes negative; feeling either anxiety and frustration or just awkwardness, because they may need more time to adjust.
Etnography
On my arrival here in Manchester on 17th September 2008, I was also complaining a lot about the weather (and I now am still complaining), but unlike Anna, I was okay with the rain due to the fact that the rain in my country is a lot heavier. What I was not used to was the chill and the breeze, since I was used to living only on T-shirt and Jeans in the warm (18 -30 degree C) weather brimming with loads of sunshine. I was so not ready with the cold; things I found in my trunk were not at all for the cold weather, as a result I spent my first and second weeks in this town on a very exciting activity, shopping for clothes. However, at first, I did not feel comfortable wearing all the things, scarf, gloves, caps, jackets, coats, and especially boots, but now they are all parts of my fashion.
The next thing I was not ready was about the technology, everything is done online here. During the induction week, we were introduced to all the technology stuffs we need to know to support our study, the p-drive, portal, blackboard, etc. I felt so overwhelmed at the time, I felt so frustrated and felt that I would never know how to access all those things or even to recalled their names, as a result, I was so confused when I was told that I had to enroll to the classes online. With a lot of frustration I tried and tried, and I finally made it. I was so happy when I managed to enroll in the classes. The next thing happened about technology was during my web quest activity for 7006, instead of searching the articles through scholar.google, I first went to the usual google and ended up in confusion since most articles I found were not from valid sources. Luckily, then I realized that I had gone to the wrong google and since then I was familiar with google scholar.
The other new situation for me is the classroom interaction. In the classes, I see some native students so comfortably convey their disagreement to the lecturer and criticize the other students’ comments straight forwardly. I feel really uncomfortable with that situation, since in my culture, it will be considered impolite if we do so. I then realize that the academic atmosphere here is different from my country, but then I still feel uncomfortable to do so (I won’t probably do that, or if I do I might feel really guilty after) or even see other people doing so. I was so used to the long winded way of disagreeing people, by telling them indirectly.
The other new thing is about the critical reading. When I was in my country, I used to believe that everything that is published especially those by big names in big journals (as ELTJ) were always correct, but then my tutors make me realize that we have to be critical when reading any article or anything, I was so amazed when the first time I realized that there could be something wrong in that big articles. I was so used to being the ‘slave’ of literature. It was probably also because of the very limited availability of resources in my country, so we put high respect on the bits we managed to find as our resources.
I actually have a lot of hesitation concerning all the habits and culture here. Such as addressing the tutors, as Anna feels, I also feel guilty sometimes calling the tutors just by the first name. Then about the e-mails the tutors send us. I actually want to reply directly, but then it will take me sometime to think what to write and the polite and proper way to tell that. My classmates probably experience similar problem. Because it is a new experience for me, replying the tutors’ mails. In my country, it is often difficult for a student to meet or even contact the tutors. Some tutors don’t want the students to contact them by text or mobile or at home, and email has not been a common thing in my country. Even some tutors do not have an email address.
Hopefully, as time goes by, I will be more familiar with all the things, and there will be no more hesitation and I will be able to behave and act more culturally proper and acceptable.