Sunday, July 31, 2011

Presentation Notes and Homework for Week 3

I can read cats' thoughts.
This one's thinking, "Where's my friend Juan Miguel??"

Hello everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. Here's your reminder about both the presentation this coming Saturday, as well as your blog homework for this week.

Mid-Term Presentation:

The two main guidelines for the presentation are that it needs to be related to culture and that it needs to get your audience involved somehow. Your classmates don't need to be singing and dancing during your whole presentation, but you should have something that draws your audience in and allows them to participate, instead of just passively listening to you talk for 5-10 minutes. Try to make it relevant and interesting to you and your classmates, and you should do fine.

I know we went over a few possible topics in class, but here they are again, in case you still need to choose a topic:

-Culture shock and how to survive it
-Advice on what to expect for a foreigner coming to Costa Rica
-Advice on what to expect for a Costa Rican doing business with foreigners
-Advice on what to expect for a Costa Rican going to live/study in another country
-Design a program to explain your culture to a foreigner
-Design a program to help people understand culturally-influenced behavior

Blog Homework

You had a week off for your blog homework, so this should be your second post (Most of you have done the week 1 homework, but if you've not yet, please do it now).

Since we talked about how our values influence our behavior, your assignment this week is to observe three value-influenced behaviors this week and report on them. Notice that I wrote the word "observe" in italicized bold print. That's important, because I want you to find three concrete, real, specific actions or behaviors to report on. So, no "if's" or "when's" or other theoretical situations. You can observe behaviors from Costa Ricans or people from other cultures (you can possibly even find them on TV or the internet if you follow international news or shows).
For each action, I want you to describe what the behavior was and what cultural value you think may have influenced the person to behave in the way he or she did. Please be specific on both of these points, or I'll leave annoying comments on your blogs asking you for more information!

Speaking of annoying comments, I'll be commenting on your blogs, and if there's a question or a suggestion in my comment, please respond to it. I'd also like you to comment on some classmates' blogs from week 1. Your partners are:

Ronald-Gaby 
Ricardo-Felipe  
Juan Miguel-Esteban  
Juan José-Alejandro

You can also comment on this week's homework if you want. If your partner hasn't posted his/her homework from week 1, choose a different classmate and comment on his/her blog.

If you have any questions about any of this, please tell me. Also, if you need any resources for your presentation, tell me as soon as possible.

Thanks, and have a great week!


6 comments:

  1. As always I think I would need a computer, thats all, ( speakers are not important to my presentation)
    thank you
    Juan Miguel

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm not sure on how to make the blog homework... Help?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can help, but tell me what part you're having problems with:

    "Since we talked about how our values influence our behavior, your assignment this week is to observe three value-influenced behaviors this week and report on them. Notice that I wrote the word "observe" in italicized bold print. That's important, because I want you to find three concrete, real, specific actions or behaviors to report on. So, no "if's" or "when's" or other theoretical situations. You can observe behaviors from Costa Ricans or people from other cultures (you can possibly even find them on TV or the internet if you follow international news or shows).
    For each action, I want you to describe what the behavior was and what cultural value you think may have influenced the person to behave in the way he or she did. Please be specific on both of these points, or I'll leave annoying comments on your blogs asking you for more information!"

    Ryan

    ReplyDelete
  4. ohhh i just got know that the cat, was the real cat, ( San Agustin´s cat) hahaha...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ricardo,

    If you're still having problems, check out Juan José's blog for this week:
    http://jjgrubi.blogspot.com/2011/08/behaviors.html

    He did this week's homework very well.

    Ryan

    ReplyDelete