Blog Post 16

Seeing the ways that other people experienced Ecuador was interesting and a great way to get new perspectives on how people communicated, both effectively and ineffectively.

One example of effective intercultural communication was the way that Paige helped with cooking with our professors. Paige talked about how even though she could not understand and communicate in Spanish with the professors she was able to use nonverbal communication to indicate that she wanted to help and was able to learn through watching. I think that showing willingness to participate is one of the most important things in nonverbal communication, being engaged is vital.

Ziling displayed another example of effective intercultural communication. In her blog post she talks about how her host family became like a real family to her. This is really impressive to me because I know how hard it was to bond with my family and I came in with a few years of Spanish experience. Ziling did not know Spanish going in to Ecuador but was still able to walk away from these short two weeks felling like she was leaving a family behind. Ziling clearly used her nonverbal skills to bond with her family in meaningful ways.


In one of Carly Vix’s host family updates she talks about how in the beginning she felt out of place with her host family and she felt as though her family did not want to communicate with her. Carly did not feel comfortable with her host family and lines of communication began to close. This is an example of ineffective intercultural communication. Although it can be very challenging it is important to try in different ways to communicate, if either side stops putting in effort or feels uncomfortable it is very hard for communication to continue. Fortunately, Carly mentioned that after some adjustment and learning more Spanish she was able to begin to talk more with her host family and she learned to use nonverbal skills as well.

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