Working in an international environment also means that one has to familiarize with the diversity of cultures, languages, and so on, which can sometime be very troublesome.
When working in a group of different cultures and languages, the most frequently occurred scenario is that there are two or more people from the same country.
I am being in the same situation. In my CG1108 group, there are two Chinese Singaporean guys. As an instinct, when working together, they start talking in their mother tongue, Singlish, a combination of both English and Chinese at the same time. Fortunately, since I can speak a little Chinese, I can somehow catch up what they are discussing. However, the other member in our group, a girl from India, cannot understand what they say. She keeps asking me to translate their discussion into English, which is rather frustrating.
Speaking in their mother tongue may be faster and easier for them to express their ideas. However, it will eventually slow down the whole process of the group as the non-Chinese speaking members have to wait for the translation in order to catch the ideas. In addition, the non-Chinese speaking members may feel that they are left out in the discussion, which will result in lesser contribution to the group work.
It would be thoughtful if all members of the group discuss the group work in one common language so that everyone can fully devote to the work. By that way, the process will be pushed faster and the result will be more fruitful.
Although there were intercultural conflicts among our teammates, we did well cooperate to finish runner-up in the LEGO Mindstorms contest. Here comes the clip
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REFERENCE
1. Intercultural (Image): http://library.csun.edu/kdabbour/images/intercultural.gif
2. LEGO Mindstorms contest - Us runner-up @1:30 (Video): http://www.facebook.com/frank.ngo
4 comments:
Hey Frank,
After knowing your group’s situation, I feel really sorry for your lady group member. Well, it’s quite fortunate that you can comprehend and catch up with their conversation but she must feel awful when she cannot be actively participating in the group discussion! Perhaps she could have told them about the difficulty she is facing and be more open with the communication among the team members. I find that open communication usually helps a lot in such situations as the other party might not be aware of their own actions at all in the first place.
It is only right that group members take care and assist one another. Also, it is important to be sensitive and aware of not leaving any member behind. Although it might be instinctive and unintentional, the two Singaporeans should keep in mind of the other races in the team as the two of them are certainly not the only members of the team. I must agree that this problem leads to a delay of the working process and reduces efficiency of the team. Moreover, valuable contributions from the non-Chinese members are also lost as time is wasted translating instead of working together.
I understand your frustration and since you are aware of the situation, I feel that it might help if you try to remind the two Chinese members to use English instead of the girl telling them herself as she might feel uncomfortable doing it due to the gender barrier. For the benefit of everyone in the team, I think its best if we point out the loop holes that we discover to the team in order to iron out the differences, fill the gaps and make the group work a more enjoyable and enriching process.
All the best for your group and hope everything turns out well soon!
Warm regards,
Win Yee
Hi Frank,
The way you have presented your post is nice.Being in multi-lingual country like Singapore, we need to implement these skills and these skills become more important for our upcoming projects and I agree with you that the members in team must use a language which other members are familiar of, as communication is vital for team's overall success.
For most of modules which we will be doing in NUS, we (Computer Engineering students) will be divided into groups and mostly the members of the group will be from different culture and race. So, here intercultural communication becomes important as members in group should communicate effectively so as to express their plans, share their ideas, and understand each other’s viewpoints. Moreover, people from different culture have different accent and it will be difficult to understand fully. Intercultural communication is the one which is responsible for breaking the barrier and strengthening the relationship between people from different culture and race. If not for this intercultural communication, the word ‘teamwork’ wouldn’t have existed since it’s difficult to form a team comprising members of same culture and moreover the most important thing we should keep in mind is that we shouldn’t assume the people from different culture to see things in the way you see it as it might break the communication between the members.
It is a pleasure to read your blog and lets improve our skills through this module.
Regards,
Santhosh
Hello Frank,
Your post accurately reflects the frustration I had encountered countless times in my lifetime. Growing up, I had found myself numerous times put in an awkward situation every time the conversation steers into undecipherable territory. Do I interrupt them or ignore them or ask someone to help translate or be forthright with them or just yell at them? My brain carefully processes these thoughts and depending on the situation, I will make a decision.
However, I do understand why my Chinese-speaking friends usually end up communicating in Chinese despite having a non-Chinese speaking audience. Putting things into perspective, I suppose that one feels most at ease speaking in a language predominantly used in their life especially if they were brought up in a home that speaks the native tongue. Personally, I studied Malay for a good chunk of my life yet I do not communicate in Malay at home. Hence for me, I feel more at ease speaking the English Language as it is something I am accustomed to.
In fact, looking back at all the times I am put in that awkward situation, I do not for a second believe that anyone of them purposely spoke in another tongue to marginalize me. Humans are creatures of habits and irregardless of how hard we try to effect drastic changes in our lives, when we let our guard down, our natural selves will shine through. It just so happen that they speak another tongue. Therefore, the next time you feel put in an awkward situation, remind that person that you could not understand him as I am sure that he himself did not realize it.
Best Regards,
Khairul
Hi Frank,
This was a very interesting post. I agree with the vast majority of the points you make in this post. I would consider myself lucky to have only 2 people in a group from the same culture - its usually a lot more than that. While I cannot blame them for default into a mode of communication that is natural to them (or in some sad cases, the only mode of communication available to them), I feel the rest of the group should stand up for themselves and for each other and let these members of the group know that they are leaving certain group members out of their discussions.
You are also absolutely right in saying that while those particular group members will have an easier time in communicating and sharing ideas, they are actually slowing down the whole process and as a result, they are making the whole group inefficient. That inefficiency becomes very dangerous when the project goes into crunch time. For example, when a decision needs to be made quickly or a solution has to be made as soon as possible, it would be disastrous to have to translate what some members are saying to the others.
Cheers,
Abhinav
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