School and home language

Between the languages a teacher speaks at school and at home is a difference. Also pupils use another language in writing an exam and communicating at home or with their friends. At home dialects and even other languages are common. The pronunciation is often a different one and pupils feel more comfortable. That leads to the fact that pupils are more fluent in talking at home, because they have more self-confidence.

There are two different types of language proficiencies. BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills = home language) and CALP (Cognitive academic language proficiency = school language). BICS are the skills of listening and speaking in everyday life. They can be acquired within 6 months constantly confronted with the language (when you live there). CALP is the academic language, which is normally not used in everyday life. To acquire CALP it takes much longer. If you want to be able to communicate in a foreign language on a CALP level it takes 5 to 7 years.
You can only express yourself in the sophistication your language level is. And a foreign language can only be as good as you master your mother tongue.

So how should it be possible for a child who immigrated, to learn a new language and become better in it than in the mother tongue? Languages are important, especially because of the fact that globalization is an important topic today.
In some schools in Belgium there is a sign which indicates that only Dutch is allowed also during breaks. Even on some public playgrounds you will find such a sign. In my opinion this is very stupid. You can not prohibit someone from speaking any language he or she wants to speak or is able to speak.

This weekend I also read an article from Austria about the same topic. In one of the Vienna Business Schools in a kind of village next to Vienna there was a letter posted in the school which says that it is only allowed to use German to communicate, also during the breaks. The letter was signed by the principal. The only exceptions are the foreign languages (English, Spanish, Italian and French) which are taught in the school and only during the lessons or to the teachers of these languages. These rules are also effective for phone calls. If a pupil can only communicate in his or her mother tongue on the mobile phone with his or her parents, then the pupil should go to a place where nobody else is disturbed or can be offended by the phone call.
These strange rules are caused by an intercultural conflict with the cleaning stuff it’s written in the letter.

That’s really not the way it should be and that’s not the solution for a better integration of immigrants and that doesn’t ease the language acquisition. I think it even makes it more difficult, because I really can imagine that if you are forced to speak a language then you are not motivated to learn it. As it also says in the news the formulations in the letter were misunderstood. But I think they just said it to the press to save their reputation, because I think the reactions of the society were not very positive about the stupid idea to only allow German in the school.

The posted letter from the principal

David Pinto - 3 step method

It is a fact that immigration and integration totally belong together. You always hear in the news or read in papers that “they” have to integrate. But who should integrate and in what do “they” have to integrate?
Often immigrants are welcomed very warmly in their community/neighbourhood, but some people think very doubtful about foreigners.

In the HLN.BE you can see following data (published in July 22, 2009):

Attitudes towards immigrants/Muslims:
1. Immigrants contribute to prosperity in our country - 26.4%
2. Immigrants can't be trusted, in general - 25.4%
3. Muslim families are in general very hospitable - 44.8%
4. Immigrants come here to profit from our social security - 49.4%
5. Muslims are a threat to our culture and customs - 42.6%
6. The presence of different culture enriches our society - 51.4%
7. If the number of workplaces deceases, immigrants should be sent back to their own country - 33.5%
8. We should warmly welcome foreigners who want to live to Belgium - 25.9%
9. People who belong to ethnic minorities should marry among each other - 18.7%
10. When people would get to know Turks and Moroccan better they turn out to be friendly people, in general - 58.8%
11. Foreigners who live here should adapt to the culture and customs of our country- 87.7%
12. Muslim women and girls should be allowed to wear a headscarf at all times and everywhere - 19%

David Pinto is focused on intercultural communication. Caused by the fact that he was an immigrant on his own, he knows how important intercultural communication is. He says that there are “fine meshed” and “coarse meshed” cultures. In a “fine meshed” culture everything is structured and it is clear how everything works. In a “coarse meshed” culture there is not really structure and everything is very open. On these two statements David Pinto built a 3 step method. With that he focuses on problems in intercultural communication.
Every individual has his own values, norms and perceptions. We tend to see our own values, norms and perceptions as universal and attribute it to others. So in intercultural communication the problem is often a difference of norms and values between different cultures. 

The 3 steps to dealt with difficulties in intercultural communication:

Step 1
look at yourself: what are your own norms and values? What influences your ways of thinking, acting and communicating?

Step 2
look at the others: what are their norms and values? What is the meaning behind their “unusual” behaviour?

Step 3
How will you deal with the observed differences in norms, values and behavioural codes? Tolerance for the other parties is important

Especially as a teacher it is really important to accept the norms and values of other cultures. In this job you have to deal with different cultures every day. Sometimes it complicates your work. For example, if I think about the feast days, people with other cultures often have another religion and so they have different dates to celebrate e.g. Christmas. In some other cultures women have a lower repute than men and so it can be also very difficult for a woman to teach a child, whos parents think like that.

Summing up, I think that David Pinto’s steps for intercultural communication can be very useful and I will use them in future career as a teacher.

Culture is everywhere

 

If I hear the word culture, I automatically think about the way of life of people who don’t live in Austria. But not only in other countries there are different cultures, even in Austria I would say that there’s a difference in behaviour, beliefs, tradition and so on. In a few of aspects of culture the Austrian people act/think the same way, but in some aspects the culture varies in the single states. If you compare for example the people from Vienna (Eastern Austria) with the people from Tyrol (Western Austria) or Vorarlberg you will see that there’s a difference. The most significant thing, you will recognize first, is the language. When people from Tyrol or Vorarlberg talk with their dialect I couldn’t understand them. So in my opinion language is also an aspect of culture. As the official mother tongue in Austria is German, there are so many dialects, which varies different parts of the country and an accent/dialect can show where you come from exactly.

Culture is everywhere, when you go on vacation to another country as well as in your own country. Characteristics, values, knowledge, traditions, attitude, religion, education and so on - that is what culture is about. There are a lot of definitions and interpretations, because it is a widely interpreted topic. It is a fact that culture is dynamic and not static. The globalization is a reason why a lot of things related to culture change. The Internet for example makes communication all over the globe very easy. It makes it possible to be informed about everything that happens in the world, because it allows you to have access to this information. Caused by the fact that we are everywhere confronted by culture, intercultural communication is very important. Intercultural communication is the exchange of information between well-defined groups with significantly different cultures.

The fact, that there are a lot of different cultures on our earth is the reason why people, who immigrate have to adapt to the country, in which they decided to live. Sometimes it’s quite easy to adapt to the way of life in other countries, but sometimes it’s really hard, because the behaviour, values and all the other aspects of culture are totally different compared to your own one. 

When I think about myself: even the way how the garbage disposal works here in Belgium is different compared to Austria. In Austria every Block or some family houses have their own rubbish bins, where they put their rubbish in – of course we have different rubbish bins for the different waste. So it is very strange for me to put the rubbish in plastic bags (which have to be from the city of Mechelen) and to just place it next to your entrance door. There are so many little things that can be totally different than in your own country, which makes it even more difficult integrate into a society.
Also important are clichés about other cultures. They may influence the way of thinking about a culture or they can be the reason why someone has a certain image of one culture. Austria is well known for its mountains and also for the fact that they are good in skiing competitions. So I think that most of the people first think of the mountains when they hear “Austria”. Everywhere I go and say where I come from, the people tell me that they have been skiing in Austria or that they are planning to go there for skiing and to be honest I can’t hear that any more. In Vienna (my home town) for example, there are no mountains and you don’t have the possibility to go skiing. I have the impression that Austria is very often reduced to its mountains. 

So if we talk about culture we should not think of the stereotypes we have in our heads. Some of them may be true, but another person can be offended if you reduce their culture or country on one thing you used to know about it. So what I think the most important thing is when you have to deal with other cultures is respect, even when you don’t understand the way they may act, it is important to treat others respectfully and not excoriate what they do, without knowing why they do it that way.