Intercultural Communication Case: Building a Marshmallow and Spaghetti Tower with People from Different Countries

Introduction

Intercultural communication is defined as “situated communication between individuals or groups of different linguistic and cultural origins”.

Case Study

Building and marshmallow spaghetti tower with a group of people from different countries. We had to work together to build a standing tower using 5 marshmallows, 20 spaghetti noodles and the English language. In my group, it was me and 4 other students from France whose first language was not English. The point of this case study was to see how we could work together and communicate efficiently during a group project when we all came from different linguistic and cultural origins.

Issues that Arose

• My group kept switching to their native language (French) which made it very difficult for me to work with them and help them because I did not understand what they were saying.
• We all had different ideas for how we should build the tower and trying to explain them was difficult because some of us wouldn’t understand the words/concepts being used.
• The time constraint against us made this project tenser because we wanted to finish it on time, but we did not have all day to figure out what the other one was saying/meant. We couldn’t take the time we needed to make sure everyone was on the same page. This led to some confusion on what design we were doing.

Time Concept

I believe that my group during this project has a monochronic time concept. We valued the project and the task at hand, our sole purpose as a group was to build a stable tower. Since we had a time constraint, getting our tower done on time was very important to us as a group. We did our tower in steps. First, we brainstormed, then we drew the tower and lastly, we built the tower.

Low Context Culture

As my group had people in it from France and the United States, I would say we had a low context culture. According to Halverson, low context cultures often display certain aspects. The most prevalent aspects I noticed within our group were our association, interaction and temporality with each other. Association within low context cultures means “relationships begin and end quickly”. My group’s relationship was based on being classmates and group mates. We did not choose each other as a group so we did not have any personal connections. Our association with each other ended when class or our case study ended, we did not take the time to get to know each other on a deeper level. For interaction, “verbal messages are explicit, and communication is seen as a way of exchanging information, ideas and opinions”.

When we interacted with each other during class it was all about our case studies and nothing else. We had a goal and we were focused on getting it done. Given the language differences we tried to be as clear as we could with each other but if someone didn’t understand it was usually ignored because the others understood. Trying to explain something to someone was going to waste time. Also, if someone did not agree with another’s idea they had no problem saying so, even if it wasn’t sugarcoated. Within temporality, “events and tasks were scheduled to be done at particular times”. Our team had a strict way of doing things. We gave five minutes to brainstorming and discussion, five minutes to drawing our plans, and ten minutes to build to the tower. We did not allow any slack time.

Efficiency of these Dimensions

I do not believe my team had the best intercultural communication. Our dimensions helped us stay on task and get the job done but it did not allow us to communicate effectively and bond. The issues that arose came from being a low context culture and having a monochronic time concept. The adaptations I would recommend for our group is that we should had taken the time to get to know each other and built a stronger cohesive relationship, I would have felt more comfortable telling them that they needed to speak in English for me because I could not understand when they spoke French. I would also recommend that we could have taken the time to make sure all of our group mates understood what we were planning and doing. We should of double checked with each other. This would have made building go smoother.