A number of years ago I conducted a presentation entitled, Successful Cross-cultural listening and speaking. 
Below are key points from the presentation.
Don’t be a language chauvinist.
For native English speakers, avoid a feeling of English language supremacy.
When interacting with a person of different cultural and/or language background,
- Concentrate on what the person is saying, not on how they’re saying it.
- Ask yourself, ‘Is this person too polite or embarrassed to ask questions?’
- Don’t pretend to understand someone, when you don’t.
- All you can initially know about a person who has an accent, is that the person speaks English differently than you.
- Withhold negative judgement. Ask and be genuinely curious about the person’s culture and native country.
- Avoid making the person feel ignorant about any grammar, syntax, accent or speech errors.
- Pay attention to face and body language to gauge a person’s understanding. If you are unsure of person’s understanding of English, at first, reduce your use of metaphors, idioms and other non-literal language.
- Avoid rushing an interaction.
- DBAE* (Don’t Be Anywhere Else) when listening.
Let me relay a story about how one of my non-English speaking clients was made to feel ignorant.
On the footpath in the central business district of Sydney, a stranger approached my client and asked him for help. Upon hearing my client’s accent the stranger pointed to his watch, and in an exaggerated manner combined with a slow, loud, patronising voice said, ‘Do – You – Have – The – Time?’
Then while pointing repeatedly to his ear, the stranger said, ‘Do – You – Understand – Me?’
Your CALL to action/HOW to apply for this post. Review the above points. In the next seven days, consider how you might purposely apply one of them.
p.s. Here is a post that describes DBAE*. Field reports from my clients over the past 20+ years – reveal DBAE as the the most memorable, and most frequently applied technique.
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This is my last post for 2016. Thank you to my regular readers, sometime readers and new readers. Posts will resume in February 2017.
The passage below – which is taken from Robert Kennedy’s speech to the young people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 – has always touched me. I thought I’d share it.
‘Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice; she or he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.
And crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest of walls of oppression and resistance.
Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet is the one essential quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.’