‘My bad!!’ Cultural Faux Pas and the Lens Metaphor
This activity is tailored for students of Diplomacy and International Communication studies. However, it can be adapted for any level of the ESL classroom. Students will be divided into pairs and presented with roles (laminated texts) with a cultural dilemma or conflict. Each student will be from a different culture and must find a way to resolve the conflict they are in while seeing the other through their cultural lens. Students will resolve the conflict by implementing active listening strategies and by reasoning through the ladder of inference. The pairs will present their role play in class, resolve the conflict, and be evaluated by their peers and the facilitator.