ELP-LEVEL 8

Performance Task 1B-2020-30

Grade: _____/50 points
UniNorte grade: ___/5
 Wilhelm
Ritz
Pardey
Student’s name: Rosales

Date: 08/09/2020

Professor: Steve Carrillo

Part I: Listening and speaking: ___/20 points

Assessed SLOs: Identify main ideas, details, and tone in texts and visuals; express ideas in a
spontaneous discussion on a variety of topics.
Instructions:
1. Read the following questions:
a. What is the purpose of this video “How do we understand our own culture?
b. According to the speaker, Why is culture important? Do you agree or disagree with his
explanation? Provide an example of how this definition is reflected or not in the
Colombian culture.
c. According to the speaker, why is it important to check our assumptions about
expected behaviour from a specific culture?
d. Based on what you watched and listened to in the video, what suggestions would you
give to an Asian visiting Colombia, regarding dining and eating etiquette? Use cultural
theory learned in class and the examples seen in the video to support your answer.

2. Watch the following video How Do We Understand Our Own Culture (click in the hyperlink).
3. Answer the questions orally using https://vocaroo.com/. Recorded answers must be no more
than 2 minutes long in total. Paste the vocaroo links in the table below and make sure that
the links actually work. If the links are broken or unplayable, zero points will be given to the
question.

Vocaroo link 1 (5 points) https://voca.ro/1fd0MyOCYvBQ

Vocaroo link 2 (5 points) https://voca.ro/1iGAk00LMfWj

Vocaroo link 3 (5 points) https://voca.ro/149AGTrh57ac

Vocaroo link 4 (5 points)

*Note: Grading is based on the holistic speaking rubric (content of the response, fluency, pronunciation and grammatical
accuracy).
Part II:Reading and Writing: ___/30 points
Assessed SLOs: Identify main ideas, details, and tone in texts and visuals; write a compare and
contrast text using reliable and valid sources.
Instructions:
1. Read the following text and identify the main ideas and supporting details of each story.

3 Situations Where Cross-Cultural Communication Breaks Down

Adapted from: HBR

Ginka Toegel and Jean-Louis Barsoux June 08, 2016

The strength of cross-cultural teams is their diversity of experience, perspective, and insight. But to
capture those riches, colleagues must commit to open communication; they must dare to share. Unfortunately,
this is rarely easy. In the 25 years we’ve spent researching global work groups, we’ve found that challenges
typically arise in three areas.
Participation norms differ greatly across cultures. Team members from more egalitarian and
individualistic countries, such as the U.S. or Australia, may be accustomed to voicing their unfiltered opinions
and ideas, while those from more hierarchical cultures, such as Japan, tend to speak up only after more senior
colleagues have expressed their views. People from some cultures may hesitate to contribute because they
worry about coming across as superficial or foolish; Finns, for example, favor a “think before you speak”
approach, in stark contrast to the “speak impulsively” attitude that is more prevalent among Americans.
Communication patterns may also make it difficult for people to participate equally in brainstorming
sessions. Brazilians, for instance, are typically at ease with overlapping conversations and interruptions,
viewing them as signs of engagement. But others, accustomed to more orderly patterns of communication,
can feel cut off or crowded out by the same behavior.
The fix: To ensure everyone is contributing, leaders of cross-cultural teams should establish clear
communication protocols. A classic tactic, when soliciting ideas or opinions, is to go around the table (or
conference line/video chat screens) at least once so that everyone has a chance to speak. Recent research on
teams of Americans and East Asians shows that such tactics result in dramatically more even contributions.
If equitable air-time or interruptions are the problem, try adopting a “four-sentence rule” to limit your
most loquacious team members, or insisting on an obligatory gap between two people’s comments, to give
everyone time to respectfully jump in.
Comfort with public disagreement is another big source of conflict on cross-cultural teams. Members
from cultures that place a high value on “face” and group harmony may be averse to confrontation because
they assume it will descend into conflict and upsets group dynamics – in short, social failure. In other cultures,
having a “good fight” is actually a sign of trust. People from different parts of the world also vary in the
amount of emotion they show, and expect from others, during a professional debate.
 When, for example, people from Latin and Middle Eastern cultures raise their voices, colleagues from
more neutral cultures can overestimate the degree of opposition being stated. On the flip side, when people
from Asia or Scandinavia use silence and unreceptive body language to convey opposition, the message is
often lost on more emotionally expressive peers.
The fix: To encourage healthy debate, consider spreading the same responsibility by asking everyone
to offer pros and cons on a particular course of action so people feel free to argue both sides, without getting
locked into positions they feel obliged to defend.
Constructive criticism is an essential part of global teamwork; it helps to resolve some of the inevitable
issues relating to punctuality, communication style, or behaviour in meetings – that aggravate stereotypes and
disrupt collaboration. But feedback can be its own cultural minefield. Executives from more individualistic and
task-oriented cultures, notably the U.S., are conditioned to see it as an opportunity for personal development;
a “gift” best delivered and received immediately even if it’s in front of the group. By contrast, people from
more collectivist and relationship-oriented cultures may be unaccustomed to voicing or listening to criticism in
public, even if the team would benefit. For face-saving reasons, they may prefer to meet one-on-one in an
informal setting, possibly over lunch or outside the workplace.
If they come from hierarchical cultures, such as Malaysia or Mexico, they may not even feel it is their
role to offer direct feedback to peers and instead deliver it to the team leader to convey. The words people
choose to use will vary greatly too. Executives from low-context cultures, such as the Netherlands, for example,
tend to be very direct in their corrective feedback, while those from high-context cultures, such as India or the
Middle Eastern countries, often favor more subtle language.
The fix: Leaders should encourage members of cross-cultural teams to find a middle ground. You might
coach people to soften critical feedback through positive framing and/or by addressing the whole team even
when sending a message to just one person.
Beyond these quick fixes, teams need to prevent conflict on cross-cultural teams by developing a
climate of trust where colleagues always feel safe to speak their minds. If you discuss potential problem areas
early and often, you’ll be well on your way to leveraging your group’s diversity, instead of seeing your progress
and performance impeded by it.

2. Answer the following questions in complete and detailed sentences in the space provided
below.
a. What is the purpose of this article and what is the author’s intention? (5 points).

The purpose of the article is to educate and the author´s intention is to make us identify what are the
main problems in communication in cross-culture teams and what are some ways to solve them.

b. Identify and describe-in your own words-the 3 examples and the possible solutions
mentioned in the text (10 points).

Participation norms differ: People from different countries and cultures can have different ways of
expressing their opinions, communication patterns or insecurities that can lets to conflict.

Fix: establish an specific communication protocol where everyone can participate equally by limiting
the amount of sentences of the interventions and by turns

Comfort with public disagreement: The way in which people from different cultures confront each
other differently (voice tone, emotion, etc.) in disagreement, and specifically in cultures where having a
 hard discussion is common and considered exiting, can affect the
dynamic of the group in a bad way.

Fix: So that everyone have a view of each point of the debate, ask for
pros and cons, in this way, no one will feel obligated to defend a certain point.

Feedback: People from some cultures may not feel comfortable with public critic and others see it as a
way to develop, some can also don´t make their feedbacks with any filter, just say what they think,
that can let to conflict

Fix: Encourage the group to make constructive criticisms and coach the group to accept and overcome
respectful critics in front of the group

c. Compare and contrast the information from the text with your own experience and/or
knowledge about how these 3 issues could affect communication with Colombians (15
points).
You must:
● Your answer must be written with at least 75 words in length.
● Relate your answer to cultural models covered in the module.
● Use vocabulary and grammar from the level.

Here in Colombia, even though we are all from the same country, we have a very rich
culture that change in every region you go, based on my experience this can let to conflict
when having a team work, but in this case, it doesn´t apply for all three issues. First, we
have participation norms that can be a problem, but here is very common to interrupt and
is not related to the region of the country. Second, comfort with public disagreement, in
this case, it is know that the “costeños” can be attracted to good debate with a high voice
tone and emotion. And third, feedbacks, also very common but most if the times, we
criticise each other in a “ face to face”, or with another person with no filter.
*Note: Grading is based on the holistic writing rubric (content of the response, vocabulary and grammatical accuracy).