SCRIPT FOR ENGLISH MULTIMODAL PRESENTATION

A pleasant morning to all of you! Today, I’ll be discussing a short presentation about my
own experiences when it comes to intercultural communication. SLIDE 1
To start things first, let me show everyone a picture of a trending topic here in the
Philippines that has been widely circulating various social media platforms for the past
few days. Judging by the looks of it, I’m pretty sure a lot of us have already started or
finished binge-watching this series despite having a lot of academic work on our table.
For those of you who have no idea yet about this series, it is entitled “Squid Game” on
Netflix and a lot of positive reviews have already been published online. To be honest, I
haven’t even started watching this series; however, there is this one scene, in particular,
that really caught my attention while I was scrolling through Tiktok. SLIDE 2
This happens to be the scene wherein everyone started dying after a panicking incident
wreaked havoc in the middle of the so-called “Green light. Red light” game. At that
moment, the instructions of the game weren’t properly relayed to the players in the
sense that they didn’t understand what was going on in spite of it being properly
explained at the start of the round. SLIDE 3
Now you may ask, why am I discussing this? How is this related to effective intercultural
communication? SLIDE 4
Advertently, we may have already experienced such type of scenario in the past, may it
be on a subconscious level or not. But the thing here is, communication is deemed to be
ineffective when information isn’t properly relayed nor understood by the audience. And
a lot of factors may be attributed to such barriers including cultural differences. SLIDE 5
For example, way back 2018, our class was given the chance to have an immersion trip
to one of the local indigenous groups that we have here in Iloilo, specifically Aetas.
Frankly, when we got there, all of us experienced this culture shock sensation seeing as
to how different their practices and traditions were despite being proximally near on a
geographical basis. Indeed, we all had a hard time adjusting to such. SLIDE 6
However, despite all these differences, we all tried to uphold an atmosphere of respect
and humility when dealing with them. We didn’t necessarily view their traditions as
strange nor unusual but instead, we viewed it as a manifestation of cultural diversity
considering our country’s long list of historical occurrences. By understanding or
acknowledging that one’s culture can be different without painting it in a bad light, we
are more than willing to listen to other viewpoints may it be rebuttals or disagreements
on our preconceived notions. SLIDE 7
Communication is not only about you as the speaker but it’s also about the audience.
To effectively communicate is to present information the best way your audience will
understand it and not necessarily the way you think it best sounds. SLIDE 8
Moving forward, another important lesson that I have realized after engaging in all those
intercultural interactions is that we should never equate our experiences with theirs in
terms of our cultural backgrounds. Something that is acceptable to practice here in our
locality may seem inappropriate to them and vice versa. SLIDE 9
All conversations are distinctively unique and will never be the same. There may be
similarities with such; however, it is vital that we should know how to navigate our way
in dealing with conversations from people of different cultural backgrounds all over the
world. Considering the impact of technology on a global scale, remotely meeting new
people from different parts of the world becomes fairly easy via the internet. SLIDE 10
For instance, I have personally encountered people from different countries by
participating in online Model United Nations or MUNs. However, the key to having a
fruitful discourse on the topics highlighted is to always set an open-minded approach
when viewing issues that are highly sensitive or controversial. Likewise, no one should
reply about how a certain act is immoral in their country by invalidating someone’s
opinion on why it is considered morally just in their own country. SLIDE 11
If we truly intend to engage ourselves in an effective mode of communication, we must
learn to broaden our perspective and viewpoint in approaching certain topics of interest
that might challenge or contradict thoughts that we have already established even at an
early age. SLIDE 12
Communication is a two-way process between the receiver and the sender. Not just the
sender delivering his or her message but as well as ensuring that the receiver
understands the message as well. We cannot “never” communicate. Thus, we need to
grow as strong communicators in order to have meaningful conversations. SLIDE 13