5/18/21; Week 5:  Culture Paradigms  

Being a teacher is itself a position the carries lots of responsibilities and expectations towards the outcomes. Teachers who have homogeneous groups of students that belong to the same cultural environment already face challenges to do their best and keep students engaged and inspired. What to do in a classroom with students who belong to different countries, speak different languages, and carry diverse cultural traits?

It is how a TESOL classroom looks like, a place of diversity, where the teacher is the person responsible for not only teaching the target language but also bringing students together to ponder on their cultural paradigms.

 What is a Cultural Paradigm? 

It is necessary to understand the concept of paradigm to know what to do in a TESOL classroom. According to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, a paradigm is “a model of something or a very clear and typical example of something”. So, cultural paradigms are the concepts all of us carry in our minds to help to understand the world around us. They are from the more simple concrete things to the more complex abstract ones. These all recorded information we have in our minds changes hugely from culture to culture and can be responsible for lots of misunderstandings and embarrassment.

           Individuals can have distinct views of the same thing.

 Kiss or not to kiss? That’s the question!!  

Here there is an example of how cultural paradigms can put us in awkward situations. Some years ago, I was asked to teach Portuguese to a young man from India. He would have five classes a week because he was working in São Paulo and needed to be reasonably fluent in Portuguese in a short period. We started our classes and kept a certain level of formality in the first few days, then we both felt relaxed treated each other informally. 

Two weeks later the course had started, my Indian student arrived for the class, without thinking, I greeted him with a kiss on his cheek. He quickly made a move backward to avoid the kiss, quite scared. I got very embarrassed and apologized immediately. Then I explained to him that we Brazilians usually greet people with a kiss on the cheek, that it is a friendly and usual way of greeting in Brazil. He let me know that hugging and kissing on the cheeks, especially with the opposite sex is not appropriated and should be avoided for Indians. 

I had been his teacher for two years, and before he went back to India, we were greeting each other with hugs as kisses on the cheek.

When it comes to greetings in Brazil, the cheek kiss is very common between women and when men and women meet. In India, hugging and kissing on the cheeks, especially with the opposite sex is not appropriated and should be avoided.  

Dealing with Cultural Paradigms 

 

As a teacher in a TESOL classroom, I will meet students who carry their own cultural paradigms, contrasting with their peers and mine. These cultural differences can lead us to unconformable situations when they occur in a given context in which different people, who experience the same situation, interpret it in different ways, according to the paradigms in their minds.

I learned it is important to keep in mind that there is no right or wrong when it comes to cultural paradigms, just different sides of the same coin. It requires being understanding, respectful and, tolerant.

            Answering the question from the top of the post, I believe that, as a teacher in a TESOL classroom, I must have a broader view of the world and remember that most of these views rely on the context. I have to be an open-minded professional, prepared to understand and deal with diverse cultural paradigms, mediate this understanding among students and help them expand their way of thinking.

References

"paradigm." 2021. In dictionary.cambridge.org

 Retrieved May 8, 2011, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/paradigm

10yearitch.com. 2021. Indian Etiquette and Customs: Avoid cultural faux pas on your trip10 Year Itch: India Travel Portal. [online] Available at: <https://10yearitch.com/india-travel-advice/indian-etiquette-and-customs/> [Accessed 18 May 2021].

Cdnapisec.kaltura.com. 2021. Cultural Paradigms. [online] Available at: <https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/html5/html5lib/v2.88.5/mwEmbedFrame.php/p/1157612/uiconf_id/43228871/entry_id/0_9w0czg1f?wid=_1157612&iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player_1539879321&entry_id=0_9w0czg1f> [Accessed 18 May 2021].