2003
The Voice: Summer 2003
Course gets students communicating across cultures
By: Sally Jongsma
Dr. Emmanuel Ayee wants his Cross- Cultural Communication course to be a transforming
experience for those who take it.
“My goal is to help students appreciate the diversity of God’s creation and
the people he has created—to understand that diversity is good,” says Ayee. He
describes the process as looking at another part of God’s vineyard. Learning about
others and their cultures gives people an opportunity to change the way they
look at life, Ayee believes.
“Taking time to understand others makes us more human and helps us know
them for who they are,” Ayee adds. He also says that in order
to better know who we are, we need to accept ourselves as God
created us, knowing that we fall short in how we live and relate
to others.
“We need to look for the positive things in other people and other
cultures,” says Ayee. Appreciating each other eases communication.
Ayee, with his family, has lived in many places: Ghana, Kenya, South Africa,
and Germany. He visited the United Kingdom and traveled extensively in Africa before
coming to the United States last summer to teach communication at Dordt College.
He wants to get students excited about the similarities and differences in cultures
as they study how people in different cultures communicate.
Knowing something about another person’s culture takes away some of the fear or
nervousness that many people experience when they meet someone who doesn’t look like
them or talk like them, says Ayee. Prejudice too often stems from lack
of exposure to other people and other ways of doing things, he believes.
Ayee fosters the transformation he hopes will occur by building a strong sense of community in his classroom.
“I try to make the class a sample of the way things ought to be,” he says. “All of us in the class regard ourselves and
sometimes jokingly address each other as ‘prince’ and ‘princess’ because we are children of the King.”
One of the first assignments students do is a cultural autobiography describing how their upbringing has shaped them. This immediately makes the issue concrete and establishes relationships between members of the class as they reflect on and share important influences in their lives.
Readings make students aware of such things as how specific cultures treat time differently and value interpersonal relationships differently. Ayee also discusses how worldviews shape cultures, how certain values manifest themselves, and how non-verbal communication functions. He has students do interviews with a person from another culture or write about living in
another culture to help them appreciate the dramatic and all-encompassing challenges of living
in an unfamiliar place.
Ayee uses narrative, stories and video, as case studies. “They help make learning
more exciting and less threatening,” he says.
Ayee believes that the course is having an effect on students.
“Some stereotypes are falling apart as students read, watch, and interview,” he says.
And they are learning from each other. This semester the class includes both
North American and international students. It is beneficial for both. Both begin to
realize that the world is broader than they’ve experienced it as they listen
to and share their stories.
“International students often feel lonely because there is more emphasis on individuals in
North America and less on community than they may be used to,” says
Ayee. He hopes that what they learn in his class will help them better deal with
American culture. And he believes that American students become more comfortable with international
students when put in a setting where they get to know and accept
one another.
“The tensions that can arise on a campus are often not overt prejudice,
but uncomfortableness that doesn’t get addressed. Minority students think people don’t care about
them, and those in the majority don’t know how to approach minority students.
Prejudice can grow.
“I go out of my way to ask ‘How are you today?’” says
Ayee. “I consciously try to bring sunshine into someone’s life by taking the
initiative.” For him, the best way to combat prejudice is to approach people
with the underlying thought that “if you hang around me you’ll enjoy my
company.”
Appreciating diversity is increasingly important in our world if we are to live
as redeemed children of God, Ayee believes. It affects how we view international
issues and how we treat people we live and work with. Growing populations
of people from diverse backgrounds are changing many communities. Our world is becoming
increasingly smaller through modern technology.
At present the course is offered as an elective in the communication department.
This summer it will be reviewed to determine whether it will be listed
as one of several options students can take to fill the college’s cross-cultural
requirement.
Spending time in another culture is still the best way to understand people
from other backgrounds and see the challenges cultural differences bring, but Ayee believes
that this course can go a long way in helping increase understanding of
and appreciation for diversity.
“I like people, and I love to study culture,” he says. He hopes
that enthusiasm gets transferred to his students.
