5 Top tips

What are your top tips for developing intercultural communication skills?

In order to develop intercultural communication skills, I think it’s really important that first and foremost you actually converse, or try to converse with someone who has a different culture to you. From there on you’ll learn the idea of acceptance, learning how societies work differently, even though you might not be accustomed to the way that something works in a different culture. Just learning to accept that there are differences, and by that it’s really important that you continue to communicate with people that belong to a different culture to you.

In terms of top tips for developing intercultural communication skills, I would say, be really open and don’t judge based on ‘how we do it here’ or ‘how we do it in my country’. I think that having differences are just as interesting as the things we’ve got in common.

Besides actually speaking French, have you been able to make use of any other skills developed through your studies?

I would say that having learned French, well-- having some basic knowledge of French then pursuing it to a greater degree at university, has helped me to know how to communicate with people that speak a different language. Making sure that they comprehend you in the best way possible. So, you might come across someone who speaks a completely different language, but I would now know to speak slower, to use hand gestures for example, things like that I wouldn’t have initially known had I not studied the language.

I think the skills that you develop when you’re learning French help you in lots of other ways as well. All the skills that I developed while learning French have also helped me learn German, because while the grammar and vocabulary is different, the basic principles of language learning are the same. And I’d like to learn Spanish, which would be completely new for me, and I think that having studied French will hopefully help with that. I also think that learning French has given me more self-confidence and prompted me to want to help other students, which I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do as a student buddy for the Open University.

I’d like to think that I’ve always been open and respectful of other cultures, but learning French has certainly broadened and deepened my understanding of French culture. And I think that cultural understanding has got to be one of the most important competencies that we can have. And ultimately, I don’t know, surely it can even help prevent wars through diplomacy and mutual understanding.