Busin

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Unit 1 | C

lassroom D

VD

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Oxford U

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Cultural awareness1

Glossaryfront line (n): people doing work that will have an important effect on something.

friction (n): disagreement or a lack of friendship among people who have different opinions about something.

harmonize (v): make systems or rules similar in different countries or organizations.

perspective (n): a particular attitude towards something; a way of thinking about something.

two-way street (n): needing equal effort from both people and groups involved.

Starting point

1 How important is cross-cultural awareness in the business world today?

2 What are the main difficulties in working across cultures?

Video comprehension

3 ViDeO Watch the video and tick (ü) the topics that David talks about.

1 Cultural awareness is very important to companies.2 Cultural awareness allows for more profit.3 Cultural awareness is important to most jobs.4 Time difference is no longer an issue.5 Languages differences are not as important.6 Learning English helps cultural awareness.7 Work placements are one way to help employees.8 Making mistakes should be avoided.

4 ViDeO Watch the video again and make more detailed notes on what David says about these topics.

1 time differences2 language differences

3 laws and regulations4 learning a language

5 work placements

» For more exercises on this video, go to the DVD-ROM.

Speaking

5 You are going to explain your company’s position on cultural awareness. Use the topics from exercise 4 to help you outline what your company does. If your company does not trade with other countries at this time, use the topics from 4 to help you think of what your company could do. Those of you from the same company can work together, but all of you must take part in the speaking.

Plan a two-minute presentation. Look back at the questions and language David uses in his answers to help you.

6 When everyone is ready, take it in turns to give your presentation. As you listen to your colleagues, make notes and when they have finished ask questions.

Once you have all given your presentations, decide together who has the most effective ways to deal with cultural awareness.

Busin

ess Resu

lt Advanced

Unit 1 | C

lassroom D

VD

Worksheets ©

Oxford U

niversity Press

Video script

Specialist Language Services is a language school based in York, in the north of England. They offer a range of language training programmes and cross-cultural communication awareness. David Wilson is a senior trainer at SLS.

How important is cross-cultural awareness in the business world today?

Well, I think cross-cultural awareness is one of those must-have things. We’re living in a global world; a world that’s becoming ever more global and certainly in large companies, large groups of companies, em, I think it’s less and less possible to do a good job, at whatever level of the company you are, unless you have a kind of wide international perspective. I think it depends, perhaps some people in the company, like sales and marketing, need more international cross-cultural awareness because of the nature of their job and they’re, they’re often going out looking for new markets, selling, people who work in, perhaps in the financial sectors maybe a little bit less.

It used to be the case that engineers and technicians didn’t feel they needed cross cultural, a cross-cultural awareness in their job, but actually, that’s changed too a lot in recent years, and technicians too, the front line people are often people now who have to go out to China, India for days or weeks at a time, so I think it’s becoming really essential, it’s becoming essential.

What are the main difficulties in working across cultures?

I think the main problem in working across cultures are time differences. It’s a very simple fact but, we live in a world with different time zones, so if you go to work at 8 o’clock in the morning in Beijing and you need to make a phone call to the United States, you obviously don’t do it at 8.30 or 9 o’clock in the morning in China; you have to wait 7 or 8 hours, until they come to, come, come to work.

The other thing, of course, is language. There are differences even within Europe about politeness for example, how direct you can be. Americans have a rep-, particularly American business people, have a reputation of being more direct, certainly than people in Europe or the Far East again, and this can create frictions.

There’s also the fact that quite simply, laws and regulations are certainly not harmonized throughout the world and sometimes it’s just a question of people assuming in one country that the laws and regulations are the same in another country and then they find they’re not and they don’t know where to get the information. Those are external barriers really to, to successful communication.

What is the best way for people to address those difficulties?

Well, I think the, one of the best ways for improving cross-cultural awareness is through the more widespread provision of English language training courses, because there is nothing like improving your awareness of other cultures than learning a language. And I say English language courses because English is the global language of business, but I would also want to say that I … I think that English speakers throughout the world should also, I would hope that in the future, they would take much more seriously than they do at present, the learning of other languages, because communication and cross-cultural communication should be a two-way street, it shouldn’t just be one way, as unfortunately it is at the moment.

However, I think there’s also a case for the provision of cross-cultural, the greater, the more widespread provision of cross-cultural workshops and seminars. They are not a substitute for going to the country and experiencing life and work there, but they can be a good preparation.

The third way, I think, of increasing cross-cultural awareness is to increase opportunities for employees at different levels of the company to work in subsidiaries or work with customers even, in, in, in the country that they need to learn about.

Obviously, not all employees want to do this. But I think if companies worked out a kind of variety of work placements, of, of varying lengths of time, they would probably find the take up was, was greater and that’s obviously the best way to learn about the cultures, actually go there. The best way to learn about other cultures is to go to the country, live there, work there, experience the frustrations, make mistakes sometimes, not serious mistakes, but you make cultural mistakes, you do and you learn from them.

Busin

ess Resu

lt Advanced

Unit 1 | C

lassroom D

VD

Worksheets ©

Oxford U

niversity Press

Worksheet answer key

1 Answers will vary. This question is to ensure students know what cross-cultural awareness is.

2 This question is designed to check students understand what cross-cultural awareness is.

3 1 Cultural awareness is very important to companies.

3 Cultural awareness is important to most jobs.6 Learning English helps cultural awareness.7 Work placements are one way to help

employees.

4 1 Time differences – one of the main problems as you have to wait to do business.

2 Language differences – there are differences in the levels of directness.

3 Laws and regulations – not harmonized around the world.

4 Learning a language – improves awareness of other cultures, helps cross-cultural communication.

5 Work placements – employers should give opportunities to work in overseas subsidiaries, living a culture is the best way to learn about it, we learn from making mistakes.