Patience and understanding

The past few weeks have been really busy and full of internationality. Our exchange students have arrived, and all together 20 nationalities are represented. What a mixture of cultures.. but all united with that curiosity and excitement of being in another country and getting to know a foreign culture. Some are very quiet and shy, others outgoing and already friends with everyone.

There are students from countries that I’ve never been to and whose representatives I’ve never met before. It will be interesting for me to learn about their cultures. I’m fascinated by the way our Chinese exchange students have English names for them selves to help us others with pronunciation and to remember their names. However, for example the Japanese exchange students do not do the same, nor do students from any other country, Personally I find it much more difficult to pronounce some of the European names (Belgian for example) due to the way we Finns pronounce the alphabet.

At the moment, with the mixture of cultures and everyone so exited with the beginning of their exchange, coping is taking patience and understanding from everyone. There are inaccuracies in both the messages we are communicating and the way we are communicating to each other, which is bringing about some misunderstandings. Also the expectations foreign exchange students have of Finland before their arrival do not always meet the reality (luckily sometimes the exchange students are positively surprised!). This can be very stressful and lead to a feeling of being let down. But it is all part of the experience. And it’s the way to generate and develop internationality competence.

This brings me to think of the qualities related to internationality competence in regards to communication. Or the kind of qualities that develop during the internationalisation process. These could be..

.. being neutral and equal towards everyone

.. empathy

.. ability to be flexible, to move on from a sudden change or drawback that bothers

.. politeness

.. being open minded

.. ..

Definitely not a inclusive list.

Now if I were to truly practise my reflective competence, I would analyse these qualities in myself, and ponder how I’ve developed them and what their state is. But.. it’s late and there’s another international day ahead tomorrow!