In these last two weeks I’ve facilitated two more intercultural communication workshops.

Language Learning in Practice:

In this workshop the native English speakers practiced what a non-native English speaker experiences while trying to communicate. First, the volunteers worked in pairs with one person speaking and one person listening. The trick was, the person speaking had to say two additional verbs each time they said one verb. Then, the pairs switched roles. This activity led to a rich discussion about the difficulty of thinking in a non-native language as well as the patience required to listen and search for the intended meaning. To finish the activity, we wrote a list of communication strategies to help volunteers speak with teachers and students while on project and while living in Manuel Antonio.

Iceberg Model of Culture:

Last week I presented volunteers with the iceberg model of culture where the observable aspects of a culture are their customs and ways of living, but the rest is hidden. Then, the volunteers worked in teams to discover more about Costa Rica’s culture based on their experience and research I presented to them. At the end of the activity, our full group iceberg was filled with interesting customs, assumptions, attitudes and values of Costa Rican culture. Thank you to all the volunteers for two awesome workshops!