A Business Lunch: An Intercultural Activity

Anila R. Scott-Monkhouse, Italy and Enrica Rigamonti, Austria

Anila Scott-Monkhouse has been a teacher of English since 1991 and has taught both children and adults. She now teaches at Parma University (Italy) and is also involved in training primary school teachers. She is an oral examiner for YLE, KET, PET and FCE. She has written articles and given talks on learner training, and on NLP and Multiple Intelligences in Language teaching. Together with M. Mezzadri and P. Taylor she has published two books on Italian grammar for English speaking learners. E-mail: anila@unipr.it

Enrica Rigamonti has been a teacher of Italian since 1992 and has taught both teenagers and young adults. She now teaches Italian at the University of Salzburg (Austria) and in Institutions for adult education. She is an oral examiner for PLIDA (Dante Alighieri) and TELC. She has written articles about the ELP, NLP and MIs, and given talks and workshops for teacher training. E-mail: enrica.rigamonti@sbg.ac.at

Anila and Enrica ran two workshops together on NLP and MIs in international conferences at the University of Salzburg (A) (“Multilingualism, a Challenge for Science and Teaching: Research, Development and Practice” – 7.11.2009) and at the University of Freiburg (D) (“Multilingualism and Aspects of Intercultural and Transcultural Language Teaching” 14.-16.10.2010).

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Introduction
Lesson plan

Introduction

The idea for this activity came out as a development of a Workshop in Salzburg on principles of NLP and MIs exploited in class as a way to discover one’s own language, identity and culture as well as the language, identity and culture of others.
The topic of a business lunch refers to a typical situation in which two cultures actually meet and SS must deal with different customs, ways of communicating and behaviours. Food is a strong component in any culture, meal times have an important social connotation, and business lunches play an important role in consolidating partnerships, work collaborations, etc.

The activity is aimed at young/adult students (SS) at a B1/B2 level (or higher).
As it is, the whole activity should last approx 90 mins.

The objectives are to:

• revise and recycle vocabulary and functions related to small talk, meals and restaurants
• develop sensory acuity (NLP)
• develop descriptive and communicative skills
• elicit ideas (including stereotypes and prejudices) on one’s own culture and the foreign culture
• stimulate intercultural discussion

Lesson plan

Materials

1. a large photo of an executive/professional (e.g. manager, lawyer, stock broker, tax consultant, salesperson, etc.) to put up on the board
2. a poster (A3) with the pictures of an eye, an ear, a nose, a mouth, a heart and an arrow, and corresponding lead-in questions to put up on the board (cf. Part 2)
3. one A4 sized sheet (one sheet per student) with a table made up of three columns and 7 lines (as in fig.1). The first column has small pictures of an eye, an ear, a nose, a mouth, a heart and an arrow to represent each of the 6 questions in Part 2 (one picture per line, starting from line 2). The second column has the name of the Country in which the activity takes place (C1) as a heading in line 1; the third column the name of the foreign Country (C2) as a heading in line 1.

Fig. 1. Table to be handed out to each student.

Part 1: Warmer: Describing a typical business person (10 mins)

The Teacher (T) puts up the photo of the professional on the board and divides the class into small groups of 3-4 people. Each group brainstorms ideas to describe a typical business person (lead-in questions from the T: what does s/he do on a typical day? Who does s/he speak to? What does s/he wear? What objects does s/he use? What is s/he like?) The T collects suggestions on board.

[This is to focus the SS’ minds on the topic of business contexts]

Part 2: Activating the SS’ imagination through multi-sensory stimuli (60 mins)

Section A: A business lunch in the SS’ country (C1) (30 mins)

The T asks SS to imagine that they are taking part in a business lunch in their own country (C1). The mental picture is shaped by the following questions:

• What can you see? What does it look like? (Visual - eye)
• What can you hear? (Auditory - ear)
• What can you smell? (Olfactory - nose)
• Is there a dominant flavour? (Gustatory - mouth)
• How do you feel? How does it feel? (Kinaesthetic – feelings - heart)
• What do you do? What are other people doing? (Kinaesthetic – actions - arrow)

The T pins up the poster (point 2 in Materials) with the above lead-in questions and corresponding pictures of the eye, ear, etc. on the board, and provides examples by pointing at each picture [i.e. modelling, e.g. The tables are beautifully laid, with elegant wine glasses and water glasses. (V) It’s rather noisy because people are speaking loudly. (A) I can smell coffee. (O) I can still taste the basil in the spaghetti sauce. (G) It all looks and feels rather formal (V, K). I drum my fingers on the table. Waiters are hurrying between tables (K)]

SS work in pairs and fill in the second column in the table (Own country, C1).

The T elicits the SS’ suggestions and fills in a similar table on the board.

Section B: A business lunch in the foreign country (C2) (30 mins)

The T asks SS to imagine that they are taking part in a business lunch in the country of the foreign language they are learning (C2), following the same lead-in questions as in Section A.

SS work in pairs and fill in the third column in the table (Foreign country, C2).

The T elicits the SS’ suggestions and fills in the table on the board.

Part 3: Developing cultural awareness: comparing cultures. (20 mins)

Class discussion: The T and SS compare the results.
The T asks the SS to look for similarities and differences between the two descriptions and to choose, and explain, the one difference they feel is the most important to take into consideration in order to fit better into a business lunch in the other Country (C2), and for a foreigner to fit into a business lunch in their own country (C1).

[This is to raise the SS’ awareness of their own personal way of approaching a frequent ‘intercultural’ situation and to encourage reflection on any commonplaces, prejudices and stereotypes which might emerge in order to highlight the hidden dangers and develop greater understanding towards the way others behave, think, act, … While looking for reasons for these differences, the SS pay greater attention to both similarities and differences between the two cultures, and reflect on how to use them in order to better fit into another cultural context.]

Follow-up lesson: challenging SS’ ideas

SS compare their description of the business lunch in the foreign country (C2) with authentic material (e.g. websites, movies, descriptions in magazines, novels, etc.) and look for confirmation and/or disproof of their ideas. Material can be provided by the T or the SS themselves.

An alternative follow-up project can be on the importance of food in culture and how/why immigrants generally keep up the food traditions of their country of origin within their home and family in the host country.

Please check the Creative Methodology for Training Business People course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the NLP for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.