natives vs. foreigners

most of my students have never been outside their province and definitely not their country... thus, most of them have never really interacted with "foreigners" outside of their foreign teachers! so before getting into the topics of behaviors, values, beliefs, and worldview- i thought to do a cross cultural simulation activity with them :)

the basic idea is to have the class into two groups and brief them both individually-

group 1: the natives/locals of a culture with some rules for social interaction (ei. may only talk shoulder to shoulder/opposite directions, must leave a 5 second pause in between questions and answers and sentences for it is "rude" to speak too fast, and hold your hands in the front if you are girl and in the back if you are a boy) also if a foreigner broke the first 2 rules then they could walk away with no explanation.

group 2: foreigners/visitors learning about the culture and wanting to get to know them better... but they had no idea about the rules of the culture or people :)

the fun part was having the groups mix up and mingle with each other for 5-10 minutes! a lot of chaos, confusion, frustration, and strange feelings for both of them (but more so for the foreigners! hehe)- some people learned and adapted to the "new" culture and others gave up. haha

the lesson of this activity: no culture is better than another...all cultures are just different- with different rules, behaviors, and attitudes- and to give them an opportunity to experience what it's like interacting with people of a different culture! one student told me it was "very beneficial and he learned a lot from it... it was very impactful" for him.

later we talked about the deeper meanings behind normal behaviors and actions that we do, which is all based on our worldview and what we believe to be real and true. i challenged them to think more about it and i hope it will get them thinking about the core of what they build their life upon to be true!

here's a few pictures from the activity and week :)

some of them got the hang of it


others like nicl... did not haha (this is her confused and helpless face, can't u tell? hehe)


a "reflective" picture with an asian squat... it's still randomly raining too!