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Introducing culture shock and adaptation questions

Welcome to the last week of this course! We discuss how to deal with culture shock and engage in intercultural adaptation. Considering key questions
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[ZHANG Hongling] Hello, everybody. [Steve Kulich] Welcome back for another week. [ZHANG Hongling] Today, I’m very glad to take up the topic of intercultural adaptation together with Steve, and discuss with you how to overcome culture shock. [Steve Kulich] We also hope that we can help you reflect on past cultural adjustment experiences that you’ve had and preparing the future to make these better learning and enriching experiences. [ZHANG Hongling] We will be focusing on concepts like adapting to new cultures, dealing with culture shock, or coping with culture stress, and fatigue. [Steve Kulich] We also hope to help you think about the processes that you might go through in this cultural adjustment process, various stages or variations that you might face.
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[ZHANG Hongling] Before we begin, we feel it may be useful for you to start considering these questions. Firstly, have you ever experienced living or studying in a new environment? How did you feel about it? [Steve Kulich] Or if you haven’t had that experience, how do you imagine it might be? What challenges do you think you may have to face? [ZHANG Hongling] Secondly, how do you understand the process of adapting to a new and strange environment? [Steve Kulich] Do any stages or phases come to mind that you might go through? [ZHANG Hongling] Thirdly, can you think of strategies or personal attitudes that may help make culture shock a positive learning experience?
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[Steve Kulich] You know that it’s not always possible to avoid stresses, and some stress can be constructive. So can you think about ways in which facing cultural adjustment stresses might help develop you? What areas do you expect that you might grow in? [ZHANG Hongling] These are the key questions that may help you understand the dynamics of intercultural adaptation. [Steve Kulich] Hopefully, we can highlight issues and illustrations that will better help you prepare for cross cultural adjustments. [ZHANG Hongling] As you consider these in the light of the whole course, we hope you will better motivated to learn how to increase intercultural competence.

Welcome to the last week of this course! In this section, we discuss culture shock and intercultural adaptation. Considering key questions helps face the challenging path through the ups and downs of cultural adjustments that develop us.

For our closing week, we primarily focus on the topic of intercultural adaptation and how openly going through this process can help develop intercultural competence. We will discuss some ways to understand and face culture shock, how to cope with culture stress and fatigue and how to facilitate intercultural adaptation through these processes. It may help you better understand and personalize these topics if you begin by considering these questions:

  1. Have you ever experienced living or studying in a new cultural context? How did you feel about it?
  2. What do you know or understand about the process of adapting to a new and strange environment?
  3. Can you think of strategies or personal attitudes that would help you to turn feelings of culture shock into positive learning experiences?
Reflecting on each of these questions may help you better understand the dynamics of intercultural adaptation, and prepare you for going through these adjustment processes and stages whenever you have to face them.
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Intercultural Communication: Dynamics of cultural identities in global interaction

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