What I teach my students

The assigned textbook concentrates mainly on the problems of intercultural communication, and uses primarily examples of Chinese-American exchanges. But my students, mostly young adults between the ages of 19-21, have seen American movies and television all their lives. Very little surprises them about Americans. What they don't understand is the huge numbers of people worldwide who speak English as their second language, and the difficulties in communicating with people where everyone in the conversation is not using their native language, and no one is very familiar with the other's culture. So we're talking about that, talking about trying to think about what other people might be experiencing.

My class is mainly engineering students, but I have one accountant, and one English major. The engineers include industrial, chemical, environmental and explosives. They are, as a group, very bright, very hardworking. Their limitations in English frustrate and embarrass them, but they often do a very good job of putting complex ideas into simple language. I wish that I was an engineer, I lack the vocabulary to give them English words for engineering technical terms, and I know if they work abroad they will need those words.

In three weeks I can give them an opportunity to practice English, to gain confidence in the skills they already have, to reinforce what they already know about international business transactions, and try to get them to think a little more about what they haven't spent much time thinking about, particularly trying to communicate with a lot of different people from a lot of different countries.