is it your thing?

LEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

Developing Your Global Outlook IT’S A GLOBAL THING IT’S A LOCAL THING

Is it your thing? Want to get on in the world, make friends, travel, fit in wherever your life takes you? How will YOU develop your GLOBAL OUTLOOK to help you make your way in a globalising world? One IMPORTANT first step is by MAKING CONNECTIONS with people who are from different places and cultures. Here are a few questions for you to think about and some ideas about things you can DO to make that first step easier.

http://studentconnectionsstage.ntistudio.co.uk

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How many students are there studying, like you, in the world today? Do you know? WHY SHOULD YOU CARE? “I have gained so much respect for a lot of the international students I have met during my time here.” You may be one of our UK STUDENTS or one of our INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS. If you are a UK student, you are one of around 130 million university students who are studying in their own country (estimates say this number is set to double by 2025). If you are to make the most of your time at university and leave well prepared for the global world, you need to MAKE CONNECTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS and other UK students who do not share the same cultures or interests as yourself. With perhaps 250 million university students globally soon, how will YOU find your place in a globalising world? If you are an international student, you are one of nearly 4 million university students worldwide who are studying outside their own country. To make the most of the great benefits you can get from being here, you need to MAKE CONNECTIONS WITH UK STUDENTS and with other international students from outside your own country.

Quick tip – want a bit of advice, directions, or information – look for someone you don’t know/ someone who looks different to you to ask for help. What’s the worst that can happen?

Do you think it’s a GREAT THING to be studying alongside students who are DIFFERENT from you? “For my own development this has given me an opportunity to gain knowledge about different cultures and build a network of friends across the world.” There are people around you from a whole range of places, from lots of different cultures, of different ethnicities, with different types of ability or disability, with different sexualities, who like different types of music, who love sports, who hate sports, and so on….and on…and on… Will you MAKE CONNECTIONS with those who are most LIKE YOU or somehow UNLIKE YOU? Who can you LEARN the most from? Who will expand your HORIZONS?

Quick tip – standing in the food queue? Ask the stranger in front what course they’re studying on. What’s the worst that can happen?

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Are you happy to go through university, come out of university – and still be thinking in YOUR box, understanding the world only from YOUR perspective? “I can’t think of a better way to challenge and improve yourself than meeting such a diversity of cultures and people.”

Why you need to think outside YOUR box.

Look at the world – CONNECTIONS are not only technical, they are PEOPLE; populations, power and jobs are not static. YOUR world tomorrow isn’t the space you occupy NOW. Stick with what you know, and you’ll soon know NOTHING. Stick with who you know and you’ll soon know (almost) NO-ONE. How do other people experience life on this planet – and how will that affect the way they see you, your world, your life and decisions? How will the world look and feel and operate over YOUR lifetime? What are some of the implications for YOU and YOUR FRIENDS?

Quick tip – seen an international news report? Ask a student from another country what they think about the issue. What’s the worst that can happen?

Are you someone who takes and makes OPPORTUNITIES – or someone who MISSES OPPORTUNITIES? “Nothing can be more interesting than sharing opinions for one thing from people with different cultural backgrounds.” There will be times in your life when you are faced with a chance, an opportunity to DO something really significant. Here, NOW, those opportunities surround you. Because making a first step is the ONLY way to take an opportunity, and every day you can make a first step to making CONNECTIONS with someone NOT LIKE YOU. That is an EXTRAORDINARY thing to do. It is an opportunity you would be crazy to miss. What’s stopping you?

Quick tip – starting some new group work? Ask to join a group of people you don’t usually work with. What’s the worst that can happen?

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How good are you at speaking English with people who are/are not native speakers? “Hearing voices from different angles helps me understand things more deeply.”

You might speak English as your first language and think you speak it very well – BUT how good are you at communicating in English with people who have learned English as a second or foreign language? English is used these days as a global/ international language. There are many more people using English to communicate at this moment who do NOT speak it as their first language than there are people who do. They often find that they can communicate better in English with others who have learned it as a second or third language than they can with first language speakers. What can YOU do to improve your English so you can communicate better with non-native speakers? There are a few suggestions for starters below. You might speak English as a second or foreign language and think you speak it very well – BUT how good are you at communicating in English with people who speak it as their first language? It is quite common for speakers of English as a second or foreign language to have had most of their language learning and experience with others who also do not speak it as their first language. This is not at all a bad thing, but it can make communications with English first-language speakers particularly difficult. You’ll probably feel they speak too quickly,

have difficult accents, or use unfamiliar vocabulary. You might be surprised to think that many speakers of English as a first language have not had much experience of communicating in English with people who have learned it as a second or foreign language, They might not realise how difficult their use of English can be. What can you do to help them communicate better? There are a few suggestions for starters below. A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR BECOMING BETTER COMMUNICATORS IN ENGLISH FOR NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS: 1. TRY! Rather than avoid speaking to native or non-native speakers because it seems difficult sometimes – go out of your way to start up conversations, include someone in your group work, etc. 2. Concentrate on what YOU are saying – are you speaking too quickly? Are you using colloquialisms or talking about people, places, etc., which may not be familiar to them? Are you speaking with a strong local/regional accent? 3. Concentrate on what THEY are saying – try not to interrupt or rush them. If they say something you don’t understand, focus on the bit you don’t understand and ask them to explain. 4. Watch their body language – if they look puzzled or worried when you are speaking, try to say something again using slightly different words.

“It has been fun learning about different cultures and discuss our future career opportunities in a global perspective.”

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Even if you are good with words – what about how your BODY communicates? Whether you are a native speaker of English or a non-native speaker of English you might be surprised at how much communication is achieved through non-verbal actions (eye contact, how close we stand, touch, gestures, for example). Because these are different in different cultures, it is surprisingly easy to offend, confuse, upset and annoy people without even knowing it (and to feel these things about another person without even realising it). Watch out for how you feel when people are talking/working with you – maybe you feel uncomfortable or decide they are not to be trusted (etc) just because you and they work sub-consciously to different rules about non-verbal communication.

Quick tip – just to see how powerful non-verbal communication can be, try standing just a little bit closer to people than you normally do and see what happens. What’s the worst that can happen?

What do you KNOW about cultural differences – and how can you work around what you DON’T KNOW? “Each new encounter made my understanding of myself and the world around me grow bigger. “ You know some stuff about cultural differences like the ones in the HSBC ads, or perhaps you’ve come across cross-cultural training videos – but you can’t know it ALL and even if you did KNOW IT ALL, you don’t know that ANY INDIVIDUAL you meet from this or that culture THINKS, ACTS, BELIEVES that way. So – you need to bear in mind that THIS PERSON you want to make CONNECTIONS with might not THINK, ACT, BELIEVE the way you do, or the way the last person you met from there did – so BE OPEN, BE AWARE, BE MINDFUL. If you’re not, you may fail to make those CONNECTIONS.

Quick tip – next time you think someone from another culture is doing something strange – ask yourself “How would I do it” and “How strange must that look to other people?” What’s the worst that can happen?

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What do you do well? How did you get to do it well? What are you GOOD AT? How did you get GOOD AT it? Not by ignoring it, hiding from it, avoiding it. Was it always easy? Probably not. Making connections, thinking about issues from other perspectives, taking the time and making the effort to listen to others – the things we’ve looked at in this little guide – might not be easy. But you can be good at them, and that will make a real difference. So – how are you going to get GOOD AT MAKING CONNECTIONS with other people – DIFFERENT people? Not by ignoring them, hiding from them, avoiding them. Will it always be easy? Probably not. But hopefully now you can see WHY it can be great for you to try, and HOW you can make those first few steps.

• Being more confident when you have to meet other people who are different in other ways – that should help you feel good and show the best of yourself. • Being better at communicating with people who don’t speak your language as a first language – that should help you when you meet different nationalities socially or professionally, or when you are travelling in other countries. • A chance to recognise and challenge your own stereotypes and prejudices – that should help you make better informed decisions about people and what they say and do. • Become better at not giving offence or being offended when you are talking to people who hold different opinions or values – that should help you make new friends and come across more positively in situations like interviews or when working with other people. • A better understanding of how YOUR world looks from other perspectives – that should help you find solutions to problems which make sense to everyone concerned.

Why should you bother getting good at making connections?

• A better understanding of how different people FEEL the impacts of things YOU do – that should help you make ethical choices about decisions in your personal and professional life.

Just a few of the things you might gain from connecting with people who are DIFFERENT from you:

Beyond these first steps – there are some bigger ways to make CONNECTIONS with others while you are at university:

•G etting a better understanding of how YOU come across to other people – surely that’s important in a globally connected, multicultural world. •U nderstanding other perspectives on the ways YOU do things – that should help you find BETTER WAYS of doing things.


Author: Dr David Killick, Leeds Metropolitan University All quotes from Leeds Metropolitan University students

i-Connect by David Killick, Leeds Metropolitan University is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
