„‚ CONDITIONS THAT HINDER EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Self-Awareness
One technique in this approach is to divide a group of trainees into pairs and to ask one
member of each pair to act in a prescribed nonverbal manner that will elicit feelings of
discomfort in the other person about his or her partner’s “strange” behavior.
As a sample exercise on proxemic behavior (use of space), the trainees are divided
into two groups. Separately, each group discusses issues such as “why we want to go
overseas” or “anticipated difficulties overseas.” Then members of one group are told
that when they rejoin the other group and are matched with their partners, they are to
establish a comfortable distance and then decrease it by one inch each minute or by
prearranged signals from the trainer. Signals could include the trainer’s moving from
one spot in the room to another or stopping the group to find out what specifics they
talked about and then asking them to continue. In this case, the trainer’s questions
should be about the content of the conversation, not about the experiment in process.
When the distance has been shortened by six inches or more, the nondirected partners
will experience discomfort and, consciously or unconsciously, will start moving away.
It is easy at this point to explain that the directed partners were imitating the
“comfort distance” of South Americans and that if the undirected partners were to retreat
in the same way with a Latin, the Latin would think them unfriendly and cold.
Conversely, in Somalia, it would be the American who would be perceived as
aggressive by standing too close for Somali comfort.
Basically, this technique attempts to sensitize trainees to many other behavior
patterns of nonverbal communication by taking an “informed” partner and a “control”
partner and directing the former to alter his or her nonverbal behavior in a gradual
manner to make the partner react. Both people will have an emotional or visceral
reaction, which they can share at the conclusion of each exercise. Emphasis is placed on
the reciprocal nature of the partners’ discomfort and confusion.
These group sensitizing techniques are based on the principle that people will react
emotionally and will give social meaning to alterations of standard American patterns of
nonverbal behavior, for example, when someone blinks often, he or she is nervous; if the
person avoids eye contact, he or she is insecure or untrustworthy; if the person does not
nod his or her head in agreement or shake it in disagreement, he or she is not paying
attention. And generally our interpretation is correct—if the other person is an
American.
Role Playing
In addition to group experiences with a self-awareness emphasis, there are role-play
techniques in which nonverbal patterns of the target language group are emphasized.
Trainees watch and interpret. A dialogue with the host-national role player helps the
trainees to discover what cues were misread and what the consequences of their
misinterpretation could be.
Potential areas of discomfort for both the American and the host national are further
explored after a trainee and the host-national role player have engaged in a role-play
The Pfeiffer Library Volume 6, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer ❚❘ 57