Logic puzzle activity for summarizing and clarifying

I regularly remind my learners to continuously summarize and ask clarification questions in L2.  During my observations of meetings, I often see cases of miscommunication which could have been avoided by a simple timeout to summarize and check that everyone has the same understanding.  In fact, if there is one communication skill needed to work effectively in L2, this is it.

But sadly, I have always had some trouble designing activities which forced the participants to use checking, clarifying and summarizing.  Luckily, I found one in the The Big Book of Conflict Resolution Games by Mary Scannell.

Basic procedure

Find a logic puzzle with 15-20 clues.  Cut up the clues and deal them to the participants.  They have to solve the puzzle without showing the others their clues.  Time: approx. 40 min for a group of four.

If you aren't sure what a logic puzzle is, it is a paper game in which you have to find certain combinations using clues.  For example, 5 friends went to a restaurant, each person ate a different dish, drank a different drink and paid a different amount.  One clue might be, "Janet did not have the cheeseburger and paid more than Frank."

What happens

The group will probably first try to collect all the variables (the names, the dishes, etc.).  Then they start reading the clues.  In some groups each person reads all their clues in sequences, while in others (the more effective ones) they take turns reading clues that are relevant to the current discussion.  They are continually asking to repeat, checking and summarizing.  The trainer can collect and add phrases throughout the activity.  Additionally, they use great language to keep the others on track in the discussion.

Training aids

I don't allow my groups to use any visual aids... no shared notes, no whiteboard, no cards with the variables, nothing.  Each person can use their notebook to make personal notes, but cannot share it with others.  I find that this makes it more challenging and forces the participants to use verbal communication.  I suspect that visual aids would make the puzzle easier to solve, but would require less language.  Second, my engineers discuss complicated, interlocking problems all the time and I find that it more or less recreates this complexity.

The larger question of feedback...

This brings me to the larger question of feedback and how to train it.  After all, summarizing and checking are the purest forms of feedback, but depend on the listener.  Surprisingly, while I find that summarizing and checking are the linguistic functions most often missing from discussions, the lack of feedback is the most common observation my participants make about their own discussions.

Here's why... asking for feedback is delicate and often ineffective.

I think we all know about open and closed questions.  And I think we can all agree that closed questions for checking understanding are not as effective.  In my experience, "Did you understand?" is pretty much worthless.  Second, I think we can agree that while a backbrief ("Please tell me what I said.") is highly effective, it is only realistic in highly direct discourse communities.  In the workplace, there is too much chance for a loss of face.

So, I prefer to help my participants draft a series of open checking questions for them to use in discussions.  In essence, it is teaching them the same skill we use as trainers for comprehension questions.  These are higher order questions which demonstrate understanding.

Examples:

• What have we forgotten to consider with this plan?
• How do you think this will affect ______?
• How does this compare to ________?
• What kind of experience do you have with this?
• What do you think are the next steps?
• What problems do you think we might have?

For more structured practice, creating these types of questions for a presentation works nicely... then try to add them into spontaneous discussion.

So, I am happy with the results from the logic puzzle activity to generate a true need for clarification, checking and summarizing but it doesn't solve everything.  The more difficult step is to train effective methods for requesting feedback.  Once the participants have it though, they notice a clear difference in their discussions and meetings.

Where You Come From - An Inexhaustible Lesson Topic

I come from Kansas City, well better said I grew up in the suburb of Overland Park, Kansas.  When I meet most people in Europe, neither ring many bells.  Kansas City is one of the non-descript cities of a few million people which litter the middle two-thirds of the country.  In fact, if you landed in KC, Cincinatti, Minneapolis, Dallas, or Pittsburgh you could forget where you are because they are all the same.  This is 'fly-over' country which many people only see from 36,000 feet.

Of course, the residents of these place would deeply disagree with this statement and could talk at length about the unique features, culture, and legends of their hometown.  I distinctly remember a taxi ride in Springfield, Missouri in which the cabbie insisted on giving me 100 years of the city's history in 10 minutes.  He even stopped the meter to take me past the next performing arts center.  It would not be any different in Omaha or Louisville.  I found the same in Glasgow and Liverpool.

But with the invention of the internet and the flattening of the world, these places have generally lost their uniqueness and developed into carbon copy cities with nearly identical cultural traits.  I bring up this point because much the same has happened here in Germany as well.  Local variety has been diminished by global sameness.  But superstores and chain restaurants are boring.  Because they must attract the global masses, they avoid risks and anything which might offend the local consumers.

I find that local flavor, local traditions, and local culture make for highly interesting lessons.  I like discussing the exceptionalism of our region.  The students are proud of their perceived uniqueness.  I believe this also has a distinct business function.  Many business small talk conversations revolve around such topics.  They are useful in business.  It gives the parties the chance to talk about something they know and like.  But it also allows them to get a sense of the values, motives and background of the interlocutor.  These topics leave space for stories and humor, but also provide a certain distance from dangerous personal opinions.

It is interesting to see, for example, how foreign trips are arranged.  Guests are often hosted in a hotel or neighborhood which has retained traces of the local culture.  Guided tour events are arranged to give guests a short journey through the traditions and legends of the region.  There is always the desire to give the guest the 'authentic' experience.

With this in mind, here are a few discussion topics which I often use in training.

• How did your hometown get its name?
• Who is the most famous person from your hometown?
• Is there anything from your home which is 'world famous'?
• Tell me about the special food from your home region.
• What unique traditions does it have?
• Does your hometown have any 'rival' cities?  Why?
• What are the most famous buildings in your town?  What happened there?
• Tell me about a festival you have every year.  Why should I go?

Google maps and street view are great resources for this.  I also find that these topics can often be captured and turned into skills training.  The simplest is something around tourism but I try not to use this too often and instead look for something more creative.  For example, I once had a student from Herzogenauerach here in Germany.  The most famous story about this town is of Adolph and Rudolph Dassler who founded Adidas and Puma respectively.  The two brothers fell out and never spoke to each other again.  But this little town is still the headquarters of these two sportswear giants.  I took the story (which all are familiar with) and set the task of negotiating a merger between the two firms.  Their goal was to 'heal the wounds' of the past.  The students did some internet research (due diligence) to gather some financial data, worked in teams to prepare for the negotiation, and then held the meeting.

This is just one example of how these lessons can turn out.  I will be heading to Kansas City next week for a short trip to say hello to friends and family, but at the same time I will be sniffing the winds of cultural change in my hometown.  Perhaps I will find a few lesson ideas along the way.

So, I encourage you to look into where the students come from and capture these topics to develop engaging and personal lessons.  It works for me.  But sadly, we never did get Adidas and Puma back together... the loyalties simply run too deep.

So, you want to teach Business English in Germany...?

Herzlich Willkommen!  You will find teaching in Business English in Germany exciting and rewarding, I'm sure.  But beware, its not all lessons in the Biergarten.  Here are ten things to help you work in Germany.

1.  German is a very hard language

There is a saying in German "Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache," which translates to "German language, difficult language."  Recently, football club Bayern Munich hired Pep Guardiola, the spanish legend, as their new coach.  He was hired roughly six months before he was to take on the position and was living in New York.  During that time he took German lessons to prepare for his new job.  He now gives interviews and leads press conferences in German.  In comparison, it took Franck Ribery nearly five years in the league to give his first interview in German.

The commentary in the press routinely praises Pep for his amazing achievement.  His German is B2 level when he is fully prepared, A2 when answering spontaneously (my evaluation).  I have never heard criticism about Franck taking so long to adopt the language... after all it is very difficult.

In reality, it is not that difficult to learn.  To be sure, the gender pronouns cause considerable problems (der, die, das) and the problem is compounded because they affect adjectives.  Additionally, the Accusativ, Dativ, and Genetiv cases can be confusing, especially when dealing with prepositions.  In some cases, the resulting grammar makes no logical sense.  However, the German language has a set of fixed rules, which when learned, never change.  There are very few exceptions to the rules and with proper study (and some memorization) the levels become easier as you go along.

Of course, English is the exact opposite.  There is a lot grey area in English grammar.  This something that takes some getting used to.  My students are dumbfounded when I tell them, "Well, both are correct."  I often have to explain the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammar.  Recently, the Süddeutsche Zeitung ran and article on English as Lingua Franca and said English grammar is "rudimentary". In short, Germans are often looking for rules when there are none and continually frustrated by exceptions (which abound).  They are surprised to find that we don't have a Duden, an official guide to correct German usage, upon which to evaluate correctness.

Some students will directly say that British English, in particular Oxford English, is correct.  This also includes received pronunciation.  While they have a point, focusing on this type of English may not have the most practical use.

So, in the end, I am not surprised at Pep Guardiola's achievement.  In fact, I would expect better from six months of classes (presumably one-to-one and intensive) with a crystal clear needs analysis.  German students, however, are often surprised at the difficulty of English as they improve.  It is a good idea to provide learners with 'guidelines' rather than 'rules' when necessary and use activities which teach a better feeling for the language rather than simply correct and incorrect.  When doing this, however, be prepared for resistance.

2.  Germans have two conflicting learning settings

If you start of a new class by outlining expectations for a course, you will probably be confronted with two very different methods of teaching.  The first is "learning by doing".  The students just want to talk.  They are often completely satisfied with a conversation class punctuated by some corrective and lexical feedback from the teacher.  The "bring in an article, read and discuss" lesson plan meets these expectations nicely and is even recommended by the students occassionally.

In the book "Der, die, was?  Ein Amerikaner im Sprachlabyrinth" the author David Bergmann humorously tells the story of learning German and it's idiosyncrasies.  In the book he mentions advice from Germans to "simply speak"... that is the best way to learn.  He compares this with learning a piano concerto by simply sitting down and starting to play.  Yet, many of your students will undoubtedly think that they can magically improve their language without any input or focused practice.

Along with this is the 'common knowledge' that you can only truly learn a language through immersion.  Occasionally, I counter this by presenting research which shows only mixed results for total immersion without a guide.  I also relate my own story about living in Germany for seven years without teaching.  My vocabulary was quite large but when I started lessons, I was still placed in the A1 group because I didn't understand even the most basic aspects of syntax and grammar.

As a result, one of the most important lesson to pass on to German students is 'noticing' the language around them.  Your students will certainly have a range of English exposure through news, television and signage (not to mention daily business).  Yet they rarely notice these words and I'm constantly surprised when they don't know an English word which is commonplace in German media.

The second learning method, which is less common, is the 'magic wand' learner.  These are the students who come to classes with the mistaken belief that somehow the teacher will transform them into English speakers through no effort of their own.  I believe this stems from their school experience in which English was often taught by lecture.  The teacher talks, the student listens, the student takes a written test to prove their knowledge.  This method has evolved in German schools now, but adult learners still carry this baggage.

This means that students might question (sometimes directly) the purpose of an exercise/class activity.  For example, guided discovery grammar teaching is unsuitable.  I've had students simply refuse to do the activity because they didn't see the point.  After all, the teacher's job is to teach, the pupils' job is to listen and learn.  So, sometimes it is best to clearly and directly state the pedagogical reason for a certain activity.  "This activity is designed to..."

So, you are likely to have classes in which the learning expectations are completely different.  One part of the class would prefer maximum speaking time and very little structured input.  The other part expects maximum teaching input and clearly structured practice activities.  Finding a middle can be a challenge and requires a certain bit of finesse.  Sometimes this means having clearly defined conversation and input driven lessons.  Sometimes this means teaching them about second language acquisition and methodology.  Sometimes this means changing people's minds about learning.

3.  German employees don't do homework

Clocking in and out at work is much more than an administrative task for German employees, it is symbolic ritual which signifies their distinct separation between work and personal lives.  Only the most dedicated students will do homework.  Typically you can use homework to distinguish goals.  Those who see English as a benefit for their personal happiness will do homework.  Those who see English only as a necessary tool for their work will not.

I wrote about this topic last year and I believe my previous post is still accurate, but the effects are limited.  Even with the most elaborately planned tasks and persuasion, I can still only get about 50% completion of homework.

This limits the trainer in many ways.  First, multi-session lessons are difficult to pull off.  Starting a topic in one lesson and continuing for weeks is a challenge.  Second, the flipped classroom is largely impossible.  Imagine assigning background reading for a lesson and then having one student complete it.  Third, more elaborate skills training is questionable.  I still typically assign presentation to my classes but I rarely have more than 75% actually create and deliver the presentations.  Fourth, vocabulary practice is almost zero.  If they need to increase vocabulary, it is best to limit the aims of the face-to-face lesson and hammer the words during the lesson.

4.  Verb tenses are a bitch (yup I used that word)

Judging by the coverage of verb tenses in international course books and websites, I'm sure that Germans are not alone.  But I have seen some interesting aspects of learning verb tenses among my learners.

First, they are obsessed with them.  For many grammar = verb tenses (called 'times' in German).  I can almost guarantee that you can walk into any German classroom, ask about their needs, and verb 'times' will come up.  Add in the grey areas I mentioned above and you have room for chaos.  Add in the 'magic wand' student to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster.

Second, their school teacher confused the hell out of them.  It is a useful exercise for a teacher in Germany to do a little tutoring for a while to get an idea of how they learn English in the schools.  English is now taught starting in the fifth grade (and sometimes vocab is taught earlier).  In the sixth grade it gets serious.  In the first three years of school English, the students are ask to master the Present Simple, Present Continuous, Past Simple (called the Simple Past in Germany), the Present Perfect, the Present Perfect Continuous, the Past Continuous, and the four future forms.  In year four, they are hit will the Past Perfect, Past Perfect Continuous and the future perfect forms.

A normal school year has 37 weeks with about 2 hours of English per week.  If we throw in testing (written and verbal), we are down to about 60 hours per year of class time.  Imagine trying to teach all 12 verb tenses (plus passives) in 240 hours.  Holy cow!  No wonder they are confused.  Adding to the issue is the fact that students often believe, for example, that the Past Perfect is just as important as the Past Simple.  After all, it was taught with the same emphasis in school.  I've even had students come to class proud to show me a table they made of all twelve verb tense forms plus passive.

So, here are some of my recommendations for teachers.  First, limit the number of tenses you cover in class but make sure they understand when to use them.  Second, expect interesting sentences.  The Present Perfect is, of course, the bugbear for Germans (the same form has a different meaning in their language).  But interestingly, they will be hesitant to use the Present Continuous while at the same time overusing the Past Continuous.  Third, spend considerable time on the future forms.  The prevalence of going to, will, and the present continuous for the future warrants a look.  Germans don't normally use a modal or verb form for the future so will be uncomfortable with it.  Finally, the difference in meaning is important enough to examine in class.  I have developed special ways of teaching these verb tenses to fit my learners... I encourage you to look at your methods.

5.  They are amazed that German and English are related

I don't know why but my student never seem to see how German and English are related.  There are so many words which are the same or nearly the same in the two languages.  Be prepared for questions like, "What mean organisieren in English?" or surprised faces when you say "Bratwurst is Bratwurst in English."  I guess Bier and beer doesn't quite do it.

I have also never met a German student who was not fascinated by loan words.  In fact, you can base an entire lesson on words like Schadenfreude, Kindergarten, and Zeitgeist.  I tend to think they few this patriotic revenge for all the English words they have adopted such as 'Shitstorm', 'Handy', 'Mobbing' and 'entertainment'.  The first three fit nicely into the loan word lesson because they have different meanings or usage.

But in essence, my students routinely fail to see the parallels between German and English.  This makes translation exercises particularly useful in the classroom.  For example, Germans are often confused by the second conditional because it uses the past tense.  First of all, I have decouple the form from time (handled in the verb tenses lessons) and then I can show them how it has a close cousin in German.  German has a rarely used, but widely known, subjunctive form which corresponds closely to the German preterite form (Past Simple).  Suddenly, when they see Old German matched with English they see the connection.  By the way, most schools do have lessons on Old German.

6.  There is only one register in German

Okay, this is not quite true, but register in German hinges on three things:  filler words, pronunciation and personal pronouns.  There are certain domain specific words like darüberhinaus (moreover) which are used in a super formal register, but for the most part Germans do not change words to change register.  For a German learner it is interesting to translate everyday spoken German to see register contradictions in English.  For example, "Dude, did you obtain the confirmation for your residency visa?"  or "Listen man, the requirements are totally confirmed."

One element of German is that distinct concepts have distinct vocabulary.  The same it true of English, but they are actually used in everyday German.  My four-year-old son routinely produce sentences with vocabulary which, when directly translated, would sound like a lawyer.  "I have consistently demanded that my brother stop hitting me!"

Register in German is primarily determined by eliminating regional dialect and speaking 'high German' (Hochdeutsch).  Primarily, this means removing regional filler words like fei, gell, echt, and na.  This also means reducing the dialect pronunciation.  Where I live, for example, /p/ and /b/ are pronounced the same (soft /p/), they same is true for /t/ and /d/ (soft /t/).  When they change register, they pronounce them correctly.

For the teacher, this poses a problem.  You will have to teach the students that the deciding factor for register in English is word choice.  I typically start by saying, "Okay, in German you change the pronoun 'you' (Sie and du).  In English, we change everything else in the sentence."  But most learners equate 'informal' English with 'unprofessional' English.  In some cases this is true, but in nearly all cases, the learners simply do not have the lexis to speak unprofessionally.  For example, I've never met a student who can produce the sentence, "Dude, I'm like totally stoked about this presentation!"

7.  Pronunciation is not a huge problem

When we think of German speakers we often attach the convenient Arnold Schwarzenegger accent.  But I find that phoneme pronunciation is not a major problem.  Sure, some work on the /th/ sounds is needed to keep them from sinking about sings.  And at the very beginner level water can sound like vater.  'Were' is often a beginner issue at well.  But for the most part, students sort these individual sounds out quite quickly.  In fact, I am often impressed at how my students handle the quintessential problem areas like 'through' and 'enough'.  Plus, long words can be tongue twisters.  Here is a list of words which nearly always cause problems.

• clothes
• debt
• negotiate
• unfortunately
• graduate (both noun and verb)
• photographer (my wife is one, so we find this often in my lessons)
• apprenticeship

But for the most part, individual word pronunciation is quite good.

The main problem is sentence level pronunciation.  This is also, sadly, the area which teachers are least prepared to handle.  While the words are said correctly, be prepared for the 'German machine gun', bang-bang-bang-rat-tat-tat-tat.  You may even find that your students look at you questioningly when you go over short forms.  Expect revolt when you bring up wanna, gonna, and gotta.

Why?  Well, read number 6.  German register is typically defined by clear pronunciation.  Teaching them short forms is equivalent to teaching them 'bad English'.  Add in a few 'Oxford English is the right way' students and I hope you can find the explanation out of the mess you created.

Also, Germans are hesitant to show emotion through intonation.  They will use intonation frequently to avoid difficult question forms (for example... You live in Munich?) but will not be prepared to pause after adverbs of commentary.  But this general lack of emotion while speaking fits with the next point.

8.  Communication skills are mediocre to poor

Yup... I said it.  I'm sorry Germany... but your overall communication ability is below average.  You write poor emails, deliver boring presentations, and write indecipherable documents.  In most cases I trace this back to the education system and the German language.  As some of you may know, Germans do not receive a 'liberal education'.  They get a very basic background in humanities up to age 16 before they move on to subject specific practical skills.

University graduates are often the exception, but less than 20% of all high school graduates attend university.  In addition, you are not likely to find them in your classes because their English is typically at least business survival level, in most cases verhandlungssicher (able to discuss = proficient).

This means that the car mechanic is totally amazing at fixing cars but horrible at talking to customers.  Taking it a step further, the engineer (through technical school) knows everything about the technology but pisses all his international colleagues off with his emails.  Of course, I am making stereotypes just as others make them about pronunciation, but there is a certain amount to truth here.  As a teacher, you may have to point to the long-term benefits of relationship building at the expense of short-term clarity.

To be honest, this is difficult line to walk as a trainer.  Most certainly there are cases in which direct words are needed.  American and British communication trainers are often confronted by the opposite, conflict and directness is avoided at all costs, resulting in unclear expectations.  But there is a middle ground here, and the trainer in Germany should seek to find it.  When it comes to leading meetings and giving presentations, there are certainly tips which constitute best practice.  Most of your students will be unfamiliar with them, both in theory and in practice.

9.  They appreciate the outsider's point of view

Germans are crazy about feedback.  This includes everything from their language to their country to their culture.  However, I have noticed that they prefer for it to be delayed until they are finished speaking.  Interruption is generally taboo, both mid-sentence and mid-story.  For linguistic mistakes and gaps, it is generally best to record and highlight later.  Most of my students prefer seeing their language written and improved rather than hitting them mid-stream.  To be honest as learner, so do I.

The second thing is about differences in opinion.  Occasionally I have lessons in which one of the student takes the discussion off on an anti-American tangent (there are ample opportunities for this).  The NSA data security issue has been the latest in string of possible 'What the hell is America thinking?' subject.  Gun control was the topic of the spring.  The presidential election was last fall.  But no matter if it is political or simply about the best way to organize a to-do list, differences of opinion will appear in your lessons.

I have found that no matter how integrated I am in Germany (in fact that helps me build extraordinary trust), I am still the outsider in the room.  They count on me to bring in viewpoints from outside their world.  In fact, a simple way to change the dynamic of the classroom from me asking them questions is to get them to ask me about America, the world, and how we see Germany.  This particularly suits the 'learning by doing' expectations of learners and as long at the teacher watches the talking time, can make for a productive lesson.

For example, most Germans are surprised to learn that "Made in Germany" actually means what they think around the world.  They are surprised by the American fascination with the Autobahn and Mittelstand.  They rarely think about punctuality until it is in the context of another culture.  Likewise, they are truly confused by the concept of patriotism and how it affects worldview.

As I've mentioned in intercultural training posts before, it would be a good idea for the trainer to understand the underlying values of German culture before trying to discuss these issues.  Perhaps I'll blog about this in the future, but the key is to stop using utilitarian reasoning and check out some rights-based ethics.  Objectivity to key and truly appreciated.  No one appreciates criticism from an outsider, but an objective evaluation is interesting.  I find that Germans are intrigued by neutral analysis and have some kind of underlying desire to be evaluated.

10.  Germany is not a nation, it is collection of similar regions

Following the previous point, it helps a teacher in Germany to understand which region he/she is in.  Each holds its own traditions and culture which are preserved with pride.  I mentioned patriotism above, which will generally be foreign to most of your learners.  For them patriotism is generally about cheering for the German national team at the World Cup.  After the two months is over it is back to those "shit Bavarians".  Likewise, Bavarians think everything northwest of Frankfurt is the Ruhr area, an industrial wasteland of welfare recipients and broken down societal systems.

There are many reasons why stereotypes and rivalries exist in Germany, some going back centuries.  It may be too much to ask for a trainer to dive into history and ethnography to try to understand them.  But the artifacts of this are clearly visible and provide ample opportunity to fruitful lessons and discussions.

First is dialect.  Picking on dialect is one of the prime sources of humor in Germany and they can talk about the differences at length.

Second is food.  In Bavaria, food translates to sausage.  In fact, I could hold entire lessons on the differences between bratwursts.  I certainly don't look down on this.  I am from Kansas City and I could describe all the minute differences in barbecue across the US and advocate clearly why KC has the best.

The third is football.  The football team you cheer for says a lot about your personality.  Enough said.  Also, I have never met so many women season ticket holders.

Finally, we have values and beliefs.  If you are new to Germany, let me give a short beliefs overview.  The south is Catholic and conservative.  The west is Protestant and liberal.  The east is less religious (although  Protestant) and focused on whichever method can fix the problems they have (population loss, unemployment, immigration, extreme nationalism).  Certain cities have special attitudes.  Munich is the city of snobs.  Berlin is poor but sexy.  There is growing tension in the media between international gentrification and true Berliners.  Cologne (Köln in German) and Hamburg are the most open cities.  Dortmund, Duisberg and other cities in the Ruhr area are the blue collar hubs of Germany.  Stuttgart makes cars (Porsche and Mercedes) and money (large Mittelstand).  The Turks are in all the main cities, each claiming to have the largest group.  It is best to stay away from this issue as far as you can, especially as you may have second generation Turkish in your class.

One of my hangouts in Berlin during my CELTA, the Irish pub around the corner was my planning HQ.

So, for me this means that I have to balance conflicting beliefs in my classes.  The majority of my learners are Franconian (a part of Bavaria, but distinctly proud of their regional identity... dare I say nation).  About a quarter are immigrants from within Germany, mostly from the former East Germany.  And a small percentage are from other countries who have moved to Germany for opportunity.  But regional culture makes for interesting and engaging lessons.  People like talking about their identity and it provides great contexts for role plays.

So, watch out for these things I'm sure you'll have as much teaching in Germany as I do!

Bis dann...

The High-Low Dilemma: Recommendation for Presenting Culture

Assumed knowledge:

• The difference between high and low context cultures
• How this difference can impact communication

Issue:

The difference between high and low context is a theoretical concept that is difficult to translate into activities for training.  The trainer can either present the theory and use examples to illustrate the difference, or they can show 'model' communication to mitigate the risk of misunderstanding.  Furthermore, because high and low context is not exclusive to national culture, the learners must be able to identify different communication styles in various situations.  This effectively eliminates the value of trainer generated models because they may not be appropriate to the situation.  Therefore, it would be best to give the learners a more solid understanding of how cultural context affects communication and let them apply the lesson to their needs.

Discussion:

There are many points of view on the topic, but I will highlight just two.  Going back to 2010, Evan Frendo offered an outstanding menu of comparing and contrasting activities.  They were all based on input from the trainer on the theory.  The learners are then ask to apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the differences.  The weakness in the approach is in the presentation phase.  I feel that presenting Edward Hall's theory as an academic topic is not a guarantee for comprehension.

Another approach is that from authors Bovèe and Thill from Business Communication Essentials (Pearson, 2012), a fairly standard university text book.  The book echoes a wide range of business communication material when it states, "The different expectations of low- and high-context cultures can create friction and misunderstanding when people try to communicate across cultural boundaries."  While certainly sound, this doesn't give the trainer or participant much to work with.  The authors then provide a model of effective intercultural communication with some basic tips.  Sadly, the model consists of a sterilized business letter.  While extremely clear it does little to support Bob Dignan's ideas of building relationships, influencing people, or building trust.  Effective for the immediate event, it does little for the long-term business relationship.

Recommendation:

So, to compliment Frendo's activities, a better method of presentation is needed.  From this, the learners can create their own trainer supported models to fit their communication needs.  One method is to link lesson plans we are already using to illustrate the difference between high and low cultures.  After all, the employees are already living in a high-context company culture.  Also, they all remember starting at the company and trying to understand 'the way things are done'.

1.  The Unwritten Rules of the Company

A good model for this lesson can be found in Vicki Hollet's series Lifestyle (Intermediate by Iwonna Dubicka and Margaret O’Keeffe).  This will help define the company culture.  In the lesson, the learners discuss and formulate the unwritten rules of the company. Language point - modals of obligation

2.  Your First Day

Learners tell stories about the challenges they faced during their first day/month at work.  Language point - past tenses and past obligation

Some guiding questions can help the lesson:

• What company/school did you come from?  How was it different?
• Did anyone help you understand the unwritten rules?
• Did you come in and give lots of recommendations or sit back and listen?  Why?
• Do you remember any mistakes you made?  How did your colleagues handle them?
• What were the most important lessons you learned?  How did you learn them?
• Did you understand what everyone was talking about (terms, projects, people, etc.)?
• What did you think about your new colleagues?  How did they treat you?
• Did you ever hear...
• That won't work here.
• We don't do it that way.
• Trust me, this is the best.
• We already tried that xx years ago.

3.  The New Hire's First Day

From here the lesson moves to giving advice for an employee's first day.  Using the previous lessons, the learners must 'sponsor' a new employee.  This could be done as a role-play, a written list supported by instruction, etc.  The new hires should prepare a list of questions for their sponsors to help make the transition faster.  Language point - giving advice, modal question forms

4.  Reveal the Learning Point

It is at this point that the trainer reveals that their company is a high-context culture.  It has its own traditions, conventions, symbols, etc., everything that makes a culture.  The trainer can also show the difference between the way they talk to each other in class (high-context) and the way they explain things to the trainer (low-context).  Because the difference is already illustrated using a personal situation, it is much clearer for them to understand.  One visual way to reveal this is to board the advice under the title "Company", then replace with "China". 

5.  Replace Company with Culture

Now that the learners comprehend the difference, it will be much more fruitful for them to do activities like Evan Frendo's or create models for their communicative situations.  Now they can better analyze their communication.  Furthermore, the tips they gave to the new hires and the questions they wrote for the sponsor are great resources.  They will mirror the advice given by Dignan, Bovèe, Thrill, and others.  The questions are very useful when working with their foreign contacts when they need help navigating the confusion.

Question for the reader:
This post uses a specific communication style.  Did it feel strange to read such a blog post?

Intercultural Training; The Options for a BE Trainer

Of course any issue covered by Chia Soun Chong gains immediate attention and debate.  And of course it is great to see some of my mentors like Marjorie Rosenberg and Ed Pegg add their thoughts.  So, I figured it might be time for me to reflect a bit on my approach to intercultural communication and how it applies to my business English training.

I have identified several options for the BE trainer to train the effect of cultural interference on their communication.

Option 0 - Ignore it.

Option 1 - Train 'above the surface' aspects for various cultures (etiquette, dos and don'ts).

Option 2 - Train values, norms, and beliefs for selected countries pertaining to class or likely interactions (often BRIC and US/UK).

Option 3 - Train learners about their own culture (whole iceberg) to raise awareness of differences and perceptions.

Option 4 - Train overarching concepts of inter-cultural communication (e.g high/low context, ethnocentrism, non-verbal message codes, uncertainty avoidance).

Option 5 - Train learners to recognize when culture has affected communication and how to resolve it.  This is often in the form of 'critical incident' training.

In discussion with Carl Dowse, he offered another option, giving learners a skill set (such as that provided in Bob Dignan's book Communicating Internationally in English) for the learners to handle a range of cultures and personalities.

Each of these options has advantages and disadvantages and the choice should depend on the training situation.  For this reason, the trainer should know when to apply various resources in training.  Course books handle this in various ways.  For example, Market Leader has tended to go for option 1, whereas Intelligent Business has gone with a mix of option 3 and 4 with an introduction to inter-cultural communication concepts and a rating scale for the learner to assess their own culture.  Either could be appropriate depending on the learners.

For this reason, we need some kind of assessment criteria for how to introduce this into our training.  I offer several criteria...

Needs - what do they want?
Time - how much time do we have and are we sacraficing language work?
Trainer and learner expertise/experience
ROI - how much will the training impact their communication effectiveness?
Behavior change - how much will the learners change/have to change to meet the goal?
Relavence - how likely are they to experience these concepts?
General to specific - where do we balance dealing with culture and handling personality types?

On this last point, we need to assess which cultures we are talking about here.  Ed Pegg and I were on the verge of a book deal on this one in Glasgow.  Hopefully, he can remember what we talked about.  Are they purely national?  Probably not.  Instead, they most likely include a whole range of cultural influences.

At the end of day, we can look at the materials we have and determine which option is best.  In my case, I most often find that option 3, teaching them their own culture from an outsider point of view, is most effective.  I train monoligual and often monocultural classes.  For them, the greatest benefit comes from seeing that what is normal and understood amongst themselves is often a far cry from what outsiders see, hear, and believe.

To give you an idea of the training, I have included the template presentation I give to my German learners.  Not all slides are used in training and this presentation does not include the discussion or activities which emerge from it.  These slides are generally introduced with the scenario: "This is training for employees in the US.  Your job is to review the presentation and determine if it is accurate and helpful for them."

Germany intercultural communication training

View more presentations from charlesrei.

So with all these options, it really is up to the trainer and learner to decide on what the right course of action is.  Simply training culture merely because it is in the material is not the best plan.  Additionally, not considering it at all is certainly not appropriate.  As business English trainers, our mandate is to improve the communication our clients.  If we stop at the present perfect continuous we are not realzing our value sold.

Selected lesson ideas from my posts during Cert IBET

For the past 7 weeks, I have been participating in the Cert IBET course from The Consultants E moderated by Carl Dowse.  I cannot express how incredible the experience has been.  As I look back over the past weeks in our conferences and course discussions, I realized how much I had written.

So, I am posting a selection of lesson ideas I have contributed to the course.  I hope you find them useful.

Warmers

#1 Another way to do 10 Questions

Warmer idea based on the 10 Questions activity.  These questions come from Inside the Actor’s Studio a television show in the US.  Celebrity answers to these might add another element of fun to the lesson.  YouTube has an entire collection… simply search a celebrity.  For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueDgkj0GI1I

·         What is your favorite word?

·         What is your least favorite word?

·         What turns you on?

·         What turns you off?

·         What sound or noise do you love?

·         What sound or noise do you hate?

·         What is your favorite curse word?

·         What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

·         What profession would you not like to do?

·         If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

The “Works every time” - Experts

I typically use an activity where the learners talk about something they know well. It brings up some great talents and experience and for my adult learner (not to mention they are colleagues) it helps get the course off on the right foot.

I pass out note cards and I tell them to write 5-6 things they can teach the class on the cards.

I put my 'card' on the board.

Here are some of the things I have used for me in the past:

• How to speak English. (okay, maybe this is a bit too much)
• How to make killer BBQ spare ribs with little effort.
• How to make awesome guacamole.
• How to diffuse a bomb. (yes, sometimes I use this)
• How to build set a table for a formal dinner.
• How to throw a curveball.
• The French Revolution.

Here are some recent ones I have seen in my classes.

• The names of all the Alps over 4000m (we tested her with Google images, she could really do it)
• How to dance flamenco.
• The best bike tour across northern Bavaria.
• How to break a board with your fist.
• How to raise children. (this was an interesting one)

As you can imagine, when partners change cards, the first question is "How do you know this?" It leads to all kinds of great conversations about personal history, hobbies, families, etc. The best part is, it causes lots of questions. Others I have used tend not to create as many.

As far as language goes, I am able to help them find some of the words they really want to have because they are so interested in these topics. I like this one.

Authentic Materials

Here is an example of how I build authentic resources into recent lessons. The two classes took the lesson in different directions so we used two different websites.

Aim: To familiarize learners with vocabulary for budgeting, including various types of revenues and expenses

Level: B1-B2

Context: Discussing the business of football (soccer) then equating this to the learner's business. It is budgeting time at the company and Bayern Munich also just reached the CL final.

1. General discussion about football.
Do you like it? If not, why not?
What is your favorite team? Why?
(cover some football vocabulary, e.g. tie, penalties, bandwagon, etc.)
Bayern Munich just reached the Champions League final... how much money will they get if they win?

2. Guide discussion into the business side of football.
Typically we start getting into more general business vocab (be in debt, licenses, etc.)

3. Authentic content
in one class, the discussion focused on player salaries and transfer fees. It was a lower level group so we looked at sites showing the payroll of Bundesliga clubs, practiced saying the numbers, talked about contract terms, etc.
In another class, the discussion went on to Spanish club debts and we read an article on how the authorities are handling the high debt figures. Standard structure... prediction, reading, comprehension questions, mine for key language (in this case I wanted to ignore football specific words and focus on things like be obliged to pay, and could be forced to.

4. Make a football club income statement
the students work in groups to list all the income and expenses. They can typically describe them, but lack the specific terms. I add the term to the explanation. We compile our lists.

Here is a sample of the board work/slide work.

Revenues	Expenses
Ticket sales	Salaries and wages
Merchandise	Facilities
Transfer fees	Travel expenses
Media rights	Equipment
Sponsorship	Transfer fees

5. Change the football club income statement to the company's income statement

Now that we have talked about all the inflows and outflows, the pairs 'change' the income statement to reflect the revenues and expenses for their company. Some things are the same, but some are much different. We typically start talking about the various components of overhead. For transfer fees, we changed the words to divestitures and acquisitions. And so on...

6. Learners rank the largest expenses in their company. Now that we have a nice complete list, the pairs much rank the expenses (largest to smallest) and say why they think so. This is a very difficult task because they do not have the figures. The final group discussion results in much agreeing/disagreeing and defending opinions. By the end of the lesson, I counted that the participants had used the target budget vocabulary about 5-6 times in the discussions.

There are many ways to go with a football lesson and there are plenty of authentic materials. In this case, the material was not the primary aim of the lesson, just support.

A Technology Wow Moment in the Classroom (Wordle)

In-company training, on site…
Level: B1
Class size on paper 14
Class size in reality 6
Never know who is going to show up, no materials, no syllabus... but training objectives.
Approach: Dogme or Just In Time Coaching whichever applies at the time
Lesson Aim: Take conversation into a language/skill direction (lexis, grammar, function, emails, presentations, etc.)

We started with a conversation about how they are doing... Is work stressful? How is everyone feeling? The company has seen drops in revenue and morale has been low. I know that they are entering budgeting time and must create forecasts for the next fiscal year. They are busy.

I asked them about their budgeting forecasts. Are they finished? Are they still working on it? I am fishing for tenses (present pref. and cont., past, will future) we have seen in past lessons.

A woman says that she is having a really hard time creating forecasts because they have cancelled an agreement with a customer. All question why the company would stop selling to a customer. I thought of an example with a mobile provider in the US (Sprint) which fired over 1000 customers because they were unprofitable. I took the devil's advocate role and I said, "I don't know the whole situation, but I think it is okay to fire customers." (Note: I have fired BE customers because they demanded more than they were worth.) I asked them to brainstorm why a company would fire a customer while I found an article online about the mobile provider.

They came up with nothing.

Now came my moment of technical glory.

My computer was connected to the projector and they watched me copy the article into Wordle and create a word cloud. Ohhh! came from the crowd. I was thinking, "Yeah, that's right, this is cool." I changed the cloud so it appeared better on the screen. I set them the task of working in groups to define the words... starting largest first. I helped. The cloud was huge, but I was just trying to pre-teach vocab. I told them that we are going to read an article and the larger the word, the more often it appeared in the text.

Then we did a prediction exercise from the word cloud and I asked them to say what the company sells and why it fired customers. This was good.

Then we read the text... discussed and then talked about which of their customers monopolize resources (a collocation we identified). If I had had more time a great idea would be for them to write the email firing the customers... polite + bad news (I love this topic). Sadly the same group won't be back next week and we will have to find something else.

But for that wordle moment... It was amazing. They were in awe and I thought applause was coming.

Inter-cultural communication

I've only recently started dealing with culture in the classroom. Most of my learners have trouble with it in emails because fewer and fewer are travelling.

My approach is this... I teach the Germans German culture. It is unrealistic to try to teach all of them the dos and don'ts of all the countries they are dealing with. And I find the categories of high context and low context a bit unwieldy. We start getting into too many maybes and mights.

Here is my outline of German culture of German workers:

1.    Myths and Facts of German Culture

1.    Beer and Bratwurst (in reality, significant regional variety; stronger regional than national identity)

2.    Punctuality (true; skeptical of spontaneity)

3.    Order and Discipline (rules ensure equitable enjoyment of societies benefits; example jaywalking, subway tickets, autobahn; misconception about German humor, it is very sarcastic and satirical)

4.    A Nation of Engineers (what quality means in German; misconception about value of creative thinking, "You can't make a Porsche and not be creative!")

2.    Public vs. Private

1.    Highly organized public sphere (clubs, groups)

2.    Hobbies taken to a professional level

3.    Low internal migration

4.    The difference between friend and acquaintance in German

5.    Privacy as mutual respect

3.    Communication Styles

1.    Prefer to see the fact and draw their own conclusions (nations of experts; example 35 y.o. worker in Germany has 20 years job experience, often much less in US)

2.    Foreigner may experience information overload

3.    Direct vs. impolite (the power of the truth; examples, how customer service is evaluated; the value of complaints)

4.    Professional disagreement (separating the opinion from the person)

5.    Making a decision (plan first, decide, follow plan; when problems arise, try to change the situation, not the plan)

This outline is just a summary, but my participants love it! They comment afterwards that they can see why emails and presentations haven't worked in the past.

Negotiations

For example, most people see negotiations as two sides trying to hash out a multi-million dollar merger or similar situation. But people bargain all the time. So in the bargaining section, I just make the task relevant to their situation.

It could be:

• Buying knock-offs in the Czech Republic.
• Getting their teenager to clean their room.
• "Your goal is to take Friday off... get your colleagues to do enough of your work to accomplish this."
• Sell a product no one would want (I think this comes from The Business from MacMillan) e.g. a 1985 Chevy with 200,000 km, an apartment next to a chemical plant, a broken remote control, etc.

In this case, I also like to teach the skill of convincing. This is usually in three steps.

1.    When someone objects or states an opinion you don't like, ask questions until you find a weak point. (question forms)

2.    Convert opinions into negative question forms. (simple to teach, often feel unnatural of learners at the beginning)

3.    Use hand-off questions to bring allies into the dialog. (lexical chunks)

All three have language elements, and when they are put together make a nearly unstoppable force.

Useful Language and ‘Phrasebook’ Training

I'm not sure if I am the first to use the term. It basically applies to those situations in which the trainer is given a set of materials for specific skills to teach useful phrases.  My thinking is, "Why don't we just send them a business English phrasebook and come back and test them in 6 months?" Hence the term.

Okay, I like models because I feel like they give the learner an idea of what right looks like. But I try to make the PPP model more interesting and personal. Today I taught a group of pre-int learners opening a presentation.

I used the content from BBC's Talking Business. I played the two presentations without any vocab prep and asked them to note the main subject of the presentations and two to three topics the presenter would be covering. They checked in pairs.

Then I played again and their task was to listen for discourse markers. They noted as many as they could find and again checked each other.

Next I pulled up the transcript on the projector in a word document. I gave them time to read and check. I noted the discourse markers and the use of "I'd like to" in the transcript. We talked a bit about why we would use discourse markers and the "would like" form.

Next, I had the marketing manager to come up, sit at the computer, and highlight (using the highlighter tool) any language from the text they would find useful for opening a presentation. His job was to elicit ideas from the group. I left the room.

Finally, I asked them to prepare an opening for a presentation. It could be a real scenario or simply a presentation about what they did last week. It was up to them. At this point, I purposely did not give them print outs of the text because the language transfer would take more effort from screen to paper. After 10 minutes of prep, they gave their openings in pairs and received peer/trainer feedback on clarity and organization. Most had written quite a bit and were using extensive notes to give their opening. So I had them switch partners and do it again without their notes.

So, this was a fairly straight forward lesson, but I like to allow them to choose the useful language they want. In the end, the presentations were very good, but the learners were not locked into a certain set of phrases. There's nothing crazy here, but it is an effective lesson with zero prep, a nice challenge, and clear takeaway for the participants.