Scrapbook

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SPEECH 210 SCRAPBOOK
Spring 05
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Introduction to Project

• The International Service Learning Project is
  a team effort sponsored by the
• Speech Department and the Honors Program.
• Supports the colleges initiative on diversity
  and globalism 
• Trains students, faculty and staff in the
  conversation café technique
• Occurs as conversation cafes, focusing on the
  cultures of different immigrant groups
  represented on campus. 

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Introduction for Speech 210

• Students in Interpersonal
• Communication (Speech 210)
• network with immigrant students
• on campus, inviting them to
• class to prepare for the cafes. 
• Immigrant students stories
• provide insight into their particular
  cultures and countries, as well as I into
  perspectives on the experience of coming to the
  U.S. and to Highline Community College.
• The project engages and supports immigrant
  voices  and allows them to share their "cultural
  capital" with the campus.

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Skills Developed

• PERSON-CENTERED VS. POSITION CENTERED TALK
• Person-Centered talk emphasizes the uniqueness,
  the person-ness, of the participants.
• Position-Centered talk emphasizes the role(s)
  that the people play.
• One is not better than the other, but they are
  different. Each is appropriate in different
  places at different times to accomplish different
  purposes.
• Flexibility in interpersonal communication is the
  ability to move from person-centered to
  position-centered, and vice versa, when
  appropriate. This increases the overall quality
  and effectiveness of communication.

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Person-Centered vs. Position-Centered Talk in
Speech 210

• Flexibility The more flexible you are the easier
  it is to achieve project goals.
• Person-Centered Viewing others from a person
  centered perspective allows you to focus on each
  persons uniqueness. This allows you to realize
  the fact that people have their own individual
  opinions and it makes it easier to collaborate
  and incorporate those opinions.
• Service Learning Project At times it is
  impossible to be completely person-centered
  because we begin from a position-centered
  perspective, focusing on the immigrant student.
  However, if you are flexible you can move past
  this in the conversation to find out who each
  person is on a deeper, more personal level. Just
  coming from the same country/culture does not
  mean that people will think exactly the same way.
  

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Conversations

• Throughout this quarter, weve learned that
  conversations are the most influential
  communication events, and therefore we should
  utilize them in achieving project goals. This is
  accomplished by using interpersonal and
  person-centered communication.
• By showing genuine interests in other cultures
  and individuals uniqueness we can help them to
  feel more comfortable on campus and help
  ourselves to overcome our stereotypes. This in
  turn can help immigrant students to be
  enthusiastic about coming to the Cultural Cafes
  to share their cultures with other students on
  campus.

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Conversation Skills

• Some strategies that we have found to be
  effective are
• Negotiating the act of mutually constructing
  identities and meanings.
• Cosmopolitan attitude the act of working towards
  alignment or coordination rather than insisting
  on agreement among all perspectives
• Open-sensitivity the act of expressing personal
  characteristics, as well as perceiving and
  responding to personal characteristics of the
  other person.
• Through our experience with the Service Learning
  Project, weve been able to discover who students
  are as position-centered immigrant students,
  but also who they are as individuals. We have
  also learning that culture was unique to each
  individual we spoke with.

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LISTENING

• Analytic Listening Most of us began with this
  type of listening, taking in what the
  international students were saying and examining
  our own stereotypes.
• Empathic Listening For some, our listening
  method turned to empathic, as the international
  students became comfortable and disclosed their
  own personal stories.
• Dialogic Listening Some of us, then, turned our
  listening style toward dialogic. As we shifted to
  conversation with the students, we shared our
  personal lives and cultures, as they shared
  theirs. We were able to compare and contrast not
  only what was different about us, but also what
  we had in common.
• All three forms of listening are equally
  effective when appropriate. We found that at
  different times when discussing different topics,
  different forms worked best.

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Ethiopian Cultural Cafe
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CONCLUSION

• Learning about interpersonal communication
  teaches us...
• that we have choices. (Communication is powerful,
  and with a broader understanding of it, we can
  use wise choices to improve our communication and
  improve the quality of our lives.)
• that one choice we can make is to respond instead
  of react. We can next, choosing a strategy that
  will be productive for all those involved. This
  gives us the ability to take any communication
  event and shift it in a positive and constructive
  direction.
• The International Service Learning Project has
  the potential to bring about positive changes in
  attitudes and behaviors on campus. It can
  strengthen relationships and create cohesiveness
  within the college environment.