In the past, my vision and understanding of intercultural contexts and viewpoints were limited because I didn’t have the chance and experience to contact with people who come from different cultures. I communicated with the people who all come from the same culture in my daily life, so I just understand different cultures through books and internet. However, now I feel that I have improved my ability to understand intercultural contexts and viewpoints since I came to the United States. I come into contact with people from different cultures and countries every day, and I have learnt different cultures, such as their languages and customs. At the same time, I also learned how to communicate with them and complete the team work together. We respected each other and learned from each other’s cultures, so I think the benefits of this process is to develop my ability of understanding intercultural contexts and viewpoints. This ability isn’t single and measurable but be formed unconsciously. As we learn and experience more cultures, this ability will become stronger and stronger.
In my 507 class, we have a MCP group that needs to do some academic research which is related to our major class-Organizational Behavior next semester. The object of study of our group is how to improve work efficiency at a different culture workplace. Therefore, we need to search and collect knowledge and resources of different cultures. First of all, we all need a little skill of understanding of intercultural contexts and viewpoints, so we could identify which resources about multicultural contexts we need. Then, we continue to learn and enhance our ability of understanding intercultural contexts in the process of screening resources. Finally, we analyze these resources and do some research and hypotheses, so that we have a better understanding of the intercultural viewpoints. In addition, I think education is an important way to build the skill of understanding intercultural contexts, especially in the United States. We all know that America is a melting pot. It has a strong containment and include cultures from all over the world. As long as you are willing to be able to contact and understand any culture you want.