TESOL - 103 - 10/15/2021   Week 05 - Cultural Paradigms

Paradigms are very interesting they help us to understand and interpret the world around us. 

The paradigms is what our brain does when we look at a drawing and say we are seeing a tree, or a house or an animal when it is just a drawing and not really a tree, a house, an animal or  anything else, actually our brain works to recognize the symbols. There are much deeper paradigms, harder to identify, like what is beauty, funny, humorous, polite, modest, and so on. These values differ in a great amount from one culture to the other. 

I am Brazilian, although I have livid in the United States for several years, and I with this study I helped me recognize many different paradigms from my country to that one. Many people in Brazil told me that American people are not friendly, but I learned that you just have to learn how to gain their trust and be friendly yourself. 

Right now I work only with Brazilian students, however I will need to work with different cultures in the future, so it is important to be aware of these paradigms, to be prepared to understand an respect my students. My older son was in an Esol class when he was on first grade, and I admired his teacher and how she could teach all those children from various countries, I believe she had a great deal of work in preparing those lessons, as a mother I am grateful for the love she demonstrated for the children. 

How will I find out what is culturally different for my students? How will I know how to address these differences?