Reflecting on my experience and Kubota’s article—language is only a tool

Chingheng Chang

From my experience, I guess I have something to tell about the transcultural working context.

The first thing is about a person’s ability to accomplish a task. I am pretty sure that a person’s English language proficiency is not equivalent of the ability to do a good job in the workplace settings. I could still recall my experience working as a part-time server in a world trade centre in Taipei. When I was an undergrad, I grabbed every opportunity to work and learn something outside of the class because I knew it’s important to accumulate working experience and accommodate to the workplace environment. I will always remember one of the co-workers on my group, which consisted of more than 50 people. She was a student from the best university in Taiwan, and I overheard other co-workers’ conversation that her major was foreign language and literature. So, I guess her English was not a problem at all. However, she was the only person who got into big trouble, and our manager even yelled at her in front of everybody for her arrogance, awkwardness in doing something, and repetitive mistakes. To simply put, although English is definitely a must in such a workplace setting, a “pure linguist,” as mentioned in Kubota’s article, does not necessarily meet the demands of any job.

The second thing is the requirement of language proficiency. After all, all recruiters must take English proficiency into consideration to a certain degree to ensure communication between we Taiwanese people and those coming from other countries. Again, in the world trade centre. During a break time, I guess I was lucky enough to talk to the manager who yelled at my co-worker (by the way, my manager was a pretty bad-tempered person who yelled at almost everyone and me, too……). In addition to asking questions about how to accomplish tasks during work time, I also wondered if she would recruit someone who does not meet the requirement of language proficiency in this company. She told me that chances would still be given to those who are motivated and outgoing, which are qualities required for border-crossing communication (Kubota, 2013). Although I wasn’t working in a border-crossing context, I believe the qualities are important in a transcultural environment as well. Moreover, my manager also told me that, from her years of observation, many people could still manage to communicate with foreign clients effectively even if there were communication difficulties resulted from limited English proficiency (I am still curious about how they did that).

Last but not least, prejudiced and discriminatory attitudes towards different cultures and people might be the last things we want to see in any transcultural scenario. This would cause miscommunication and distrust; thus, failure to work collaboratively. From the working experience of my cousin, who is currently working in Mumbai, India. he told me that he used to work with a racist (got fired of course) who also comes from Taiwan. He failed to work with other people on the team for his distrust and negative attitudes towards his local Indian co-workers. On the other hand, my cousin is always in a good relationship with the local people, and I believe in addition to language proficiency, the passion for understanding different cultures, open-mindedness, and many other personal qualities are part and parcel characteristics for overseas assignment just as mentioned in Kubota’s interview.

In conclusion, although English language proficiency is considered of great importance in multicultural settings, I believe the ability to accomplish tasks well and good attitudes are equally (or more) important characteristics to foster during anyone’s course of education. My reflection on Kubota’s article makes me wonder if a change should be made in our foreign language education?

Discussion

Except for good grades for standardized language tests, what makes a person even more competitive in the job market? What are the implications for language teaching and/or curriculum planning? (or you might want to talk about personal qualities)

What strategies would you employ if you encounter language barrier or have limited language proficiency in a transcultural workplace setting?

How can we eliminate cultural bias, stereotype, and historical sentiments to improve willingness to work collaboratively and mutual understanding if working in a transcultural context? Should education include such issues, not just language learning as part of the curriculum?

Reference

Kubota, R. (2013). “Language is only a tool”: Japanese expatriates working in China and implications for language teaching. Multilingual Education, 3(4).