5.+Socially+and+Culturally+Responsible+Practice

Due to the fact that the Australian society is very multicultural, it is very important to have the proper skills in interacting and communicating with people from different backgrounds and be culturally sensitive to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings. The following courses helped me be aware of the different cultures that surround me and how to maintain manners that are acceptable for other cultures and cultural sensitivity. This capability is not only vital in the workplace, but in forming and maintaining friendly relationships outside work.

=Cross Cultural Communication1=

This course was an elective I undertook during the last semester of my final year. It was one of the most enjoyable courses I have undertaken during the 3 years of tertiary education. The joy about this course was the variety of topics we covered within the the broad topic of culture, i.e language, religion, identity and belonging, culture shock, etc... Also, the amount of tasks required were reasonable and enjoyable. One of the first tasks of this course was an interview with a person who's from a completely different cultural background and write a short story about how the interview went and what we learned from the interviewee's culture. I conducted the interview with a girl from Malaysia who belonged to the Chinese Malaysian ethnic group. During the interview, I learned more about the Malaysian culture, the languages spoken and what it would be like visiting Malaysia. Also, during the tutorial classes, we were always involved in discussions about religion, characteristics of different cultures and the different languages spoken. Those discussions were not only enjoyable, but very important in the development of my own interpersonal skills, which are particularly important in the workplace, due to Australia being very multicultural. One of the assessment tasks was visiting the Identity Exhibition at the Immigration Museum. This was not only enjoyable, but a very good opportunity to learn about the cultures that exist in Australia. During the visit, I learned more about the traditional greetings and dresses of different countries and how sometimes the things we say can be very rude and considered racist in other cultures. We were also to form groups to present and discuss about a particular topic which is related to the themes of the course text book. My group and I chose to discuss about Third Culture Kids, their characteristics and their identity and culture. I found this topic very interesting to research about, especially now that it has become more relevant due to people migrating to different countries and how this impacts on the future generations. Through studying this course, I became more aware of different cultures, what's considered to be rude and vice versa, different languages I had never heard of before, and most importantly, being able to communicate better with people from different backgrounds. In the conclusion of this course, I was more culturally sensitive and enjoyed meeting people from different backgrounds and learn more about their cultures.


 * Assessment Tasks**

=Spanish1=

This course was my elective in the second semester of the second year. Due to my strength in leaning different languages, I enjoyed doing Spanish so much and managed to get an overall mark of 75 without having to put any effort into neither the exam nor any of the assessment tasks. This course aimed to give students the basic principles of the Spanish language (e.g. conversations about oneself, the weather, the place/city/country, hobbies, families, etc...) and the culture of Spain and other Spanish speaking countries. During the class, we were not allowed to speak in English with the teacher; the whole class was run in Spanish, which greatly helped me practise my Spanish speaking and listening skills. One of the major assessment tasks we were required to complete was a cultural assessment interview with a person from a Spanish speaking country. The task aimed to introduce students to the main differences and similarities between the Spanish culture and the Australian Culture. Working on this assessment task, helped me know people from different Spanish speaking countries, which helped me practise my Spanish speaking and listening skills, and also helped me to know more about the culture in the Latin America and Spain. By the end of this course, I was able to understand the common types of conversations in Spanish, understand some of the Spanish lyrics of music and gain knowledge about the culture in the Spanish speaking countries. Looking back at how I could've achieved a better grade, I could have definitely put more effort into the exam and the daily tasks that we were required to do, which could've guaranteed me a grade of HD.


 * Assessment Tasks**