Hi Vishwa
For a cue card like this you could talk about a foreigner (maybe someone you met at a conference or at university) or someone who lives in your country, but who has a different origin (maybe their ancestors came from China or the Middle East). If you can't think of a real person, you can make one up. The examiner isn't interested in whether you are telling a story or speaking the truth - only in how you speak.
Describe someone you know who comes from a different country or who has a different origin from you.You should say:
What you like about this person - here, you would talk about their personality or sense of humour, their strange taste in food or the fact that they wear very different clothes to you.
What you have learned about their culture from the friendship you have formed - here you could explain anything you learned that was the same in their culture and what was very different. What did you have in common? What did they tell you that sounded very strange (customs, habits, and so on.)
If knowing this person has encouraged you to experience other cultures - here, you could talk about wanting to travel to visit this person's country, or even wondering about what it would be like to visit a place you saw on TV or a photo on a magazine that made you wonder what the people there were like, and if they had similarities and differences just the same.
In terms of the discussion questions, I've just had Teacher Nikki ask me, and these are my 'on the spot' answers (they took a while to transcribe).
How important is it to learn about other people’s cultures?I'd say that because of globalisation and the fact that the world is getting smaller that everyone needs to know something about other cultures, although some more than others. Everyone knows about so much more than they did in the past - cultures and people and languages and goods are all becoming mixed up, but an understanding of what's important to people in other countries, what their beliefs and cultural norms are, can help you to understand them. I think it's particularly important if you work within a multicultural business or study with people from other countries. For example, in Britain, you are allowed to be late to a dinner invitation (it's considered to be good manners to be up to 20 minutes late) but people would be absolutely appalled if you turned up late to a business meeting, and for an interview, you're expected to get here early. In parts of Latin America, such as Mexico, it's almost unheard of to be on time, but as a foreigner, if you understood that was the cultural norm, you wouldn't be angry or upset by it. Another example is how people address each other. When you work with colleagues in the UK, you tend to call them by their first name, like John or Alice, rather than, say, Dr Smith or Professor Johnson, because to be so formal is seen as being stuffy or unfriendly. In the Middle East, it would be viewed the other way round - calling a colleague Hamed or Mezoon if they were a doctor or professor, would be seen as disrespectful. I think the extent to which you need to learn about other cultures depends on what you do, but in general, the more insight everyone has into other cultures, the less dysfunctional the world would be!
What difficulties can people living in a foreign country experience?There are obviously some practical difficulties, like getting used to a different climate, or working out the local currency - as well as language difficulties. I once brought the entire market place to a halt by asking for a dozen swimming pools. The traders though it hilarious, so at least I made their day! (I meant carrots, but since I was in a Turkish marketplace, I asked for havuz instead of havuç.) Sometimes living in a foreign country can be isolating, because you have no friends from your own world with whom you can communicate, at other times it can be liberating. Being in a busy city where everyone speaks your language is very stressful, because you hear parts of everyone's conversations. Being in a foreign city where you understand nothing is delightful, because you have no interference to your thoughts. The biggest problem is probably culture shock, though, and that can be anything - a German tasting rat-on-a-stick in Thailand, an Omani seeing a topless beach in France - whatever is strange an unusual - even getting used to not doing the things you'd normally do at home, like driving into town for a coffee.
What benefits can there be for people living in a foreign country?There can be enormous benefits. Some of them are cultural - getting to understand another people really well, and as a foreigner often being treated with extraordinary kindness and indulgence. Bedouin friends I got to know in the Middle East invited me to shoot dassies in the desert, eat iguana on a camel drive, and I was privileged to be invited to a number of weddings - one time to the groom's party (unheard of!), because although I was female, I was 'teacher' and 'foreign' and so somehow exempt from the normal rules. There are great benefits to migrant workers, because they can often maintain a much higher standard of living working overseas, and still support their families back home. Benefits can include little things like living in a warmer climate, such as all the retired people from the UK who go to live in Spain for the sunshine, and huge things, like being able to make a new life with fantastic opportunities somewhere like Canada or Australia. There are also benefits to students, of course, especially those wanting to learn a language!
Do you believe in stereotypes about different nationalities?I think it's sometimes hard not to, because stereotypes are like caricatures - there's enough of the original in them that to make them recognizable, although they are an exaggeration. The important thing is not to
treat people like stereotypes, and to realize that everyone is an individual. I think its also important to understand that you may not like another country's politics, it doesn't mean you can't like its individual people. I think you have to set aside the image of a particular nationality - its stereotype - and approach people from there with an open mind, and that's true of everyone you meet. I also think that stereotypes are dangerous because how can
one image reflect an entire nation? There are differences between north, south, east and west, city and countryside, coast and interior. The boundaries between nations are also becoming blurred because of migration, and because political boundaries defining a nation are just lines drawn on a map - the people who live on one side of the line may be exactly the same as those on the other, whereas their neighbours a little inside the border could be quite different.
Are you in favor of adopting a universal language?I think many people are in favour of having one world language, just to make life easier in terms of communication, but there would be arguments over which language to choose. Would it be Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, English, something else? It would mean lots of people would have no jobs (language teachers, translators), but it would save billions in terms of misunderstandings, foreign language classes (and IELTS exams!). Maybe, whatever the universal language was, should be alongside the country's native tongue, so every child would grow up bilingual, preserving their language as part of their cultural identity while speaking the universal language so they could travel anywhere, understand and be understood anywhere and do business anywhere. There would certainly be fewer mistakes made in business or political negotiations, because nobody would be able to hide behind words with subtle meanings others didn't fully understand.
What negative effects might come from a country losing its traditional culture?Loss of identity, loss of traditions. Many of these may seem silly and inconvenient on the face of it, but they help define a particular people. As the world becomes closer in terms of technology and communication, it becomes more homogeneous. Fashion, food, cars, houses... they can all look the same whether they are in Manila or Madrid. In the end, everything will be the same, and if traditional art, music, dance, literature, language and crafts all disappear, then instead of a world of many countries, each proud of a certain heritage, there will be one superstate of clones. That would be sad. It would also mean the end of tourism. Travel is one of life's joys: seeing other people, other cultures, tasting something you've never eaten before, marvelling at a building unlike anything at home, listening to sounds from strange instruments, watching something being made by hand and being fascinated, even if you don't know what the thing is called or what it's purpose is. Our experiences help to define who we are, and if we have no new experiences because all the world is the same, how much poorer we would be intellectually and spiritually.
Kind regards
Teacher Jill
www.ieltsexchange.com
