Meeting 3: A Introduction to Culture

April 30, 2008

In this meeting we will learn about visible and invisible culture as well as have an intercultural communication experience.

This is our Agenda:

1. Discussion <<20>>

a) "By nature people are nearly alike, by practice they got to be far apart."

Group Answers:

1) "All the people must be the same but in reality they are very different"

2) "People are the same but they change by a different environment"

3) "For example, people who live in the USA and people who live in Japan are the same but people who live in Ausralia and people who live in Africa are different based on their clothes etc. In other words, people are the same but they differ by food, clothes, house, hair color."

4)"When we were born we did not know anything and we were the same but we experienced different things which made us as individuals."

5) "When we were born we were almost the same but we grow up to be a totally different person depending on the country and environment. So this phrase means that our essential is the same so we can understand eachother."

b) "We go ice skating" ** We might do this in the next meeting.

2. JH will talk about culture <<20>>

3. Intercultural Role Play: the Martians meet the Earthlings <<40>>

You can see the descriptions of the Martians and Earthlings here. Below is footage from the role play:

For next meeting:

Reflect on your "Martians meet the Earthlings" experience. Were you an earthling or a martian? Did you get along well with members of the other group? What was your impression of them? Did this experience teach you anything about intercultural communication? Why or why not?

Meeting 2 - The State of the World

The State of our World

I. Ice Breaking <<Done>>
1. Make a circle and count

2. CLG introductions: 2 facts and one lie

II As a group, discuss about the following: If there were 100 dollars in this world, how much money would the following regions have? Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, The Former Soviet Union, Africa, Middle East, South Asia, South/Southeast Asia, Oceania, North Africa, South Central America and the Caribbean <<Done >>

III Please fill in the information on this sheet by yourself and then watch the movie If the world were 100 people . (To view the movie, you might have to download the Adobe Flash Player Plug-in)

When you have finished III, please write a comment to this post and discuss your reaction to the information you received in II and III as well as to meeting 2 of MMCE in general.

Meeting 1: Welcome to MMCE

Welcome to MMCE. I am looking forward to learning about cross-cultural understanding and world issues with you all this semester. Below is our schedule for meeting 1:
1) Introduce MMCE and the syllabus
2) Make CLGs
3) The world geography challenge