Intercultural and Interpersonal Communication

(Picture from: http://www.acmilan.com/lm_team_roster.aspx)

In my CG1102 and CG1413 team, we have two Singaporean boys, one Indian girl and a Chinese boy. When we discuss in class, it is interesting to see that different cultural backgrounds can have a great effect on the communication between us.

The most obvious distinction is the different accents that we have. Jun Hao and Byron speak Singaporean English and sometimes a little bit Chinese with me (Sorry Lakshmi). Lakshmi speaks English with some Indian accent. I speak English in a very Chinese way and cannot speak very fast. We are from different language backgrounds, but as a bridge for communication, English is our common language. Nevertheless, due to our mother tongues, we cannot use English as well as a native English speaker. That’s where misunderstandings during communication process occur. Sometimes due to my vocabulary limit and other people’s accents, I cannot understand totally what they mean. Sometimes because of my unclear sentences, my teammates could not get what I mean. So we need to repeat or rephrase again and again. Misunderstandings really affect the efficiency of our discussion.

However, the cultural differences are far more than just different accents. The cultural background defines a person’s ethical group. Why I am a Chinese? Why Lakshmi is an Indian? It is not just because we look different and speak different languages. The key factor is that we have different values in mind. And even though Byron and Jun Hao are Chinese as well, we still have great differences. The environment where a person grows up defines how the person thinks, behaves and values. So how can we solve this problem? From a foreigner’s perspective, I think as we are here in Singapore, we need to get ourselves involved in this large Singaporean cultural environment. Although it is not easy as we have a fixed way of thinking rooted deep in our minds, we need to change ourselves to be accepted in this society.

Communication and Teamwork: why they are important for me?

Communication and teamwork are probably among the most important skills in my life.

I would confess that my communication skills still need improvement (probably due to language and cultural differences). Misunderstandings and undesired consequences sometimes occur when I could not convey my ideas accurately to other people.

For example, I had an unpleasant experience in my project for ACC1002X last semester. The cause was simple: I did not decode my teammate’s message accurately while I did not send explicit message to my teammates. While I finished one thing and told him, he interpreted it as another thing. We misunderstood each other and ended up with a conflict. My teammate claimed that I did not do my work which sounded offensive to me.

Well, when I recall this experience, I wished that I could have taken CG1413 before doing that project. Misunderstanding could really cause a lot of trouble in my life. Only when we communicate with each other well can we work together and be efficient.

As a computer engineering student, hopefully I will be working with many other computer engineers as teams in the future. So, teamwork is really important for me. As a member of a team, I don’t usually work as a leader. More often I will be the person who come up with ideas or the person who does the work. But that doesn’t mean I do not have the personalities of becoming a leader. Although grown up in a country where education emphasizes individual effort, I think I have a lot of experiences of teamwork both in China and in Singapore. So, working together with people from different cultural backgrounds would be fine with me and I hope I would have a nice semester with my teammates in CG1102 and CG1413.