Hi everybody!
I’ve just taken the Yoga questionnaire and I have to say I’d never had the chance to test my intercultural competence before. I think this concept is quite blurred and complicated but actually it refers, in a rather abstract and indefinite way, to something we should be pretty familiar with. I mean, most of us have studied “mediazione linguistica e culturale” during the triennio and that was all about trying to gain a certain amount of competence as far as foreign languages and cultures are concerned.
I think I’m going to start my reflections by re-citing the fascinating quotation that introduced the Yoga form:
How shall I talk of the sea to the frog,
if it has never left his pond?
How shall I talk of the frost to the bird of the summerland,
if it has never left the land of its birth?
How shall I talk of life with the sage,
if he is prisoner of his doctrine?
-Chung Tsu, 4th Century B.C.-
I’ve personally found it awesome and I think it contains, or better anticipates, the core of hundreds and hundreds of academic studies made on the subject. “Looking out is looking in” is really nothing more than what you get while you’re dealing with a different culture: you basically “go back” to your own world with a rather different attitude (or at least you should do that). So, I think that we really become aware of the implications of our culture while we are living abroad or even when we have the chance to come into contacts with people from other cultures (let’s think about the meeting with Chiara or the Skype exchange).
I found the form pretty useful and interesting: it really contributed to foster a reflection on my own attitude towards the difference…anyway, I think that such forms have their limits too. I mean, on the one hand, they can be useful to assess our intercultural competence at a certain point of our experience and to be able to “phrase it”( to express it with concrete words); yet, on the other hand, they are less useful when it comes to evaluate progress since, to me, you can’t learn to be more “culturally competent” than you already are. I may be wrong but I personally think it is something that has to be found within ourselves as human beings and that it mainly depends on our past experience of diversity…and this is not something you can easily “mould” as much as you like.
As it has already been stated in the introductory pages, it is not that easy to teach someone intercultural competence. And, to be honest, I don’t think it is something that can be taught at all! Maybe, it could be possible to affect one’s own attitude towards “the other”, to overcome some cultural prejudices, to be more respectful towards differences…but you can’t hope to teach empathy or even curiosity to a narrow-minded person! (This is just my opinion;-))
Interestingly enough, I noticed that the knowledge of a foreign language is considered of utmost importance when one has to deal with a different culture. I perfectly agree with this statement. I think there’s nothing more fascinating than leaning how to express opinions, emotions, needs in a language which is not yours and being able, in return, to get those overtones that are inevitably lost if you can rely on nothing but translations.
As you can see, my reflections focus on SOME aspects of the YOGA form…anyway, it could really take me pages to talk about this topic more in depth…Hopefully we will be able to discuss it on Monday!
(photo taken from Flickr)
I’ve just taken the Yoga questionnaire and I have to say I’d never had the chance to test my intercultural competence before. I think this concept is quite blurred and complicated but actually it refers, in a rather abstract and indefinite way, to something we should be pretty familiar with. I mean, most of us have studied “mediazione linguistica e culturale” during the triennio and that was all about trying to gain a certain amount of competence as far as foreign languages and cultures are concerned.
I think I’m going to start my reflections by re-citing the fascinating quotation that introduced the Yoga form:
How shall I talk of the sea to the frog,
if it has never left his pond?
How shall I talk of the frost to the bird of the summerland,
if it has never left the land of its birth?
How shall I talk of life with the sage,
if he is prisoner of his doctrine?
-Chung Tsu, 4th Century B.C.-
I’ve personally found it awesome and I think it contains, or better anticipates, the core of hundreds and hundreds of academic studies made on the subject. “Looking out is looking in” is really nothing more than what you get while you’re dealing with a different culture: you basically “go back” to your own world with a rather different attitude (or at least you should do that). So, I think that we really become aware of the implications of our culture while we are living abroad or even when we have the chance to come into contacts with people from other cultures (let’s think about the meeting with Chiara or the Skype exchange).
I found the form pretty useful and interesting: it really contributed to foster a reflection on my own attitude towards the difference…anyway, I think that such forms have their limits too. I mean, on the one hand, they can be useful to assess our intercultural competence at a certain point of our experience and to be able to “phrase it”( to express it with concrete words); yet, on the other hand, they are less useful when it comes to evaluate progress since, to me, you can’t learn to be more “culturally competent” than you already are. I may be wrong but I personally think it is something that has to be found within ourselves as human beings and that it mainly depends on our past experience of diversity…and this is not something you can easily “mould” as much as you like.
As it has already been stated in the introductory pages, it is not that easy to teach someone intercultural competence. And, to be honest, I don’t think it is something that can be taught at all! Maybe, it could be possible to affect one’s own attitude towards “the other”, to overcome some cultural prejudices, to be more respectful towards differences…but you can’t hope to teach empathy or even curiosity to a narrow-minded person! (This is just my opinion;-))
Interestingly enough, I noticed that the knowledge of a foreign language is considered of utmost importance when one has to deal with a different culture. I perfectly agree with this statement. I think there’s nothing more fascinating than leaning how to express opinions, emotions, needs in a language which is not yours and being able, in return, to get those overtones that are inevitably lost if you can rely on nothing but translations.
As you can see, my reflections focus on SOME aspects of the YOGA form…anyway, it could really take me pages to talk about this topic more in depth…Hopefully we will be able to discuss it on Monday!
(photo taken from Flickr)
Bye bye
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