International Foundation Programme Report: Intercultural Experiences

This report, written for the English for Academic Purposes (EAP 6.2) module, details a student's personal intercultural experiences in a workplace setting. The report describes interactions with colleagues from diverse cultural backgrounds, highlighting communication challenges arising from language barriers, differing perspectives, and potential misunderstandings. The author reflects on these experiences, acknowledging instances of conflict and the impact on team projects. The report emphasizes the positive aspects of intercultural interactions, such as fostering creativity and innovation. Based on these experiences, the report offers recommendations for improving intercultural communication, including respecting cultural differences, building strong relationships, promoting language training, and considering all team members' viewpoints. The report concludes with a focus on promoting effective intercultural communication in the workplace.

INDIVIDUAL REPORT

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

MAIN BODY
Intercultural experiences at work refers to the unique platform for individual self
development. It refers to experiencing other culture which leads with learning new things, belief
and values of different culture.
The situation and interaction arouse such as when I along with my 4 other team mates
from different region across where working on the same project that was being allotted to us.
Since everyone was new to me, it was being difficult to interact at the initial point of time. All
three others were having different backgrounds and different languages, which leads with
various understanding of things related to project. Since all were having different perspective,
view and opinions it was hard to initiate and start the project allocated to us. Language barriers
was hitting me hard to understand what is being communicated to me, and problem of how
should I communicate what I need to communicate.
Their was lack of coordination between the team members as the understanding of
language was difficult for all four of us. This has not lead us with the achievement of the desired
result and effective decision making on the things which needs to be done in accordance with the
completion of project. The communication problem also arouse when there was something
which I communicated to one of my colleagues, he understood in different manner, which as a
result has affected the project in an adverse manner(Makhmudov, 2020). Intercultural
experiences has also resulted with the conflicts and misunderstanding at the workplace as a result
of different viewpoints and opinions which has indirect effect on the completion of team
projects.
These have also lead with positive things to understand that how dedicate the team
members were towards there work. It implies with there passion to undertake the challenging
task which helps in supporting there career growth. By this I have learnt to stay calm and
composite in understanding thing and not to panic away as this is the part of corporate working
environment. I have learnt that by having different cultural member from all across, it leads with
creativity and innovation in thinking perspective and helps me to consider different aspects to
problem solving and thinking out of the box(Toliboboeva, 2020).
The recommendations for effective intercultural communication at the workplace, relates
with understanding and respecting the cultural difference which will facilitate strong

communication, This can be by the means of developing strong relationship with the team mates
which will help in facilitate to understand individuals strengths and weaknesses and lead to
effective communication of different cultural members (Özdemir, 2017). This can be by the
means where company can promote training programs, which leads to understanding of basic of
different language that will support the business operation and leads with effective
communication at the workplace. Lastly it could be by the means of considering the viewpoints
and opinions of team member and not ignoring the same, which might leads with the conflict and
dispute at the workplace and can lead to hindering effective intercultural communication in the
organisation.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Makhmudov, K., 2020. Ways of Forming Intercultural Communication in Foreign Language
Teaching. Science and Education.1(4).
Özdemir, E., 2017. Promoting EFL learners’ intercultural communication effectiveness: a focus
on Facebook. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 30(6), pp.510-528.
Toliboboeva, S.J., 2020. Teaching Intercultural Communication In English. Science and
Education, 1(Special Issue 2).