In-class blogging

I want to do a research on intercultural communication (I know that it is a broad topic and I am in the process of narrowing it down to a specific yet interesting question). How people of different culture communicate is what motivates me to think about this topic because I have often found it hard to fit into a new group of people, and I believe that there are many other individuals who face the same problem, so I am always curious about the secret behind that and the factors that can make it work better. As far as my academic major (TESL) is concerned, understanding students of diverse background is a crucial part of my future job; besides, I am also interested in the field of translation, which is again something to do with different languages of different cultures.

Hopefully, this research will benefit teachers and people working in multicultural societies by allowing them to socialize better and live together in a more harmonious fashion.

Speaking of the methods for conducting this research, although it is undecided, I will employ any tool or mean accessible and necessary.

Diversity

Diversity to me is a co-existence of a variety of elements in the society including culture, background, occupation, race, gender, and the list can go on and on. I believe social changes have helped the world to become a more diverse planet through multicultural education which gives people the opportunity to explore and understand different cultures as opposed to ethnocentrism, and through advancement in technology which has made travel so much easier and communication so much more accessible; these have all contributed to a more diverse world in which we live today. In the mean time, despite the fact that I am an English major, I have always been fascinated by the issue of how people of different culture can co-exist and how they can understand one another better in a way that will make them more tolerant, because I myself has often found it rather difficult to start a conversation with someone from a different background, let alone finding a topic.

Family in Cambodia

Brainstorming:

- Traditional
- Family size: mostly nuclear family, it was once extended family
- Occupation: mostly business
- A lot of respects for the elders
- Housework for female members (although this trend has grually been changing)
- Men used to be the only breadwinners, now that more and more working parents can be seen
- Parents' intervention in children's study, e.g. deciding what major their children should do in college
- Children are expected to do well in school, at home and the community
- Huge gap between ideal culture and real culture
- A younger sister cannot get married until her older sister does
- Domestic violence is prevalent

Activity One

I believe I did my first writing in primary school when I was taught how to write simple sentences then paragraphs and then compositions and finally essays when I was in high school. We were usually given some new words that we learned during the lesson of the day to construct some simple sentences as homework. I can say that most of the writing I did in my primary and high school careers were done for academic purposes rather than personal communication or any other purposes except for when I was doing my final year in high school, I was inspired to write a number of essays and send them to be published on newspaper, of course not all of them were selected. In general I do not find writing easy and a pleasant task to do because I have always found it difficult to start putting my pen down to paper and convert my ideas into appealing words. Sure enough, there are times that I find writing enjoyable, and that is when I write e-mails or letters to my friends and family, mainly because of the fact that I never have to worry about mistakes or organizations whatsoever, so it is like free writing.

Speaking of reading, I have always enjoyed reading news articles and novels and books on self-improvement. I used to keep a diary, and I managed to do that for more than a year; I have to say that it is fun to write diary every single night before you go to bed, it is a very good summary of your day, the good things and bad deeds that took place, it is always so much fun reading those I wrote down that year now. Although I do not write any more diary these days, I write e-mails and text my friends on a daily basis; these two mediums have become two essential parts of my daily communications. When it comes to formal writing, quite frankly I do not have much chance to write formally but I used to write a daily report and minutes of the daily meeting to my supervisor when I was working at a local cable TV company in Cambodia, ocassionly, I was asked to reply clients' inquiries too.

I was lucky to have had the chance to grow up in three different language environment when I was a child. I went to three different schools, namely, Khmer school (Cambodian language), English school and last but not least, Chinese Mandarin. As a result, I now speak three languages; however, what you find easy in one language might not be as easy to express in another language, this is what I learned.

To me, the biggest difference between an essay and an assignment is that the former has a wider range of audience whereas the latter is usually confined to certain instructors and peers. The biggest similarity would be that we use both types of writing to express our ideas.

Self Introduction

My name is Narong Loa, I am an exchange student majoring in teaching English as a second language from Cambodia, a small country rich in culture and natural resources located in Southeast Asia, we are especially proud of our magnificent Angkor Wat temple-one of the seven wonders of the world. Anyway, I will be here for one semester only, so I hope I can get to know all of you and together we can have a very productive semester.