I added a link to a very big list of common English mistakes that Chinese students make, in Conversation Issues and in General English. A quick look can help yoavoid these mistakes.
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2013-10-31: Updated to replace broken links to Bing online dictionary. Deference or Confidence... or both? When researching for a class about the career ladder, I found an interesting blog post by Susan Adams on Forbes (a major US business magazine) about Asian-Americans in business titled: It was inspired by another, much longer (11 pages!) article by Wesley Yang in New York magazine titled:
These articles reminded me of another article I saw recently: Returning to the "Paper Tigers" article by Yang, the author's opinion is that: Children raised according to the principles of East Asian cultures (like China, Korea, Japan etc) will do very well in school grades and exams but they are at a disadvantage in the business world and later life in America (it might not be a problem if living in Asia), compared to those children raised according to the principles of American culture. He says that East Asian cultures value things like extensive academic learning and deference, while American culture values things like confidence, independence and socialization (Socialization is the process by which people, especially children, learn to how behave with others and become social and able to interact and socialize well with others). Why does that affect becoming a business leader in the US? Because in business you have to be able to network and sell yourself. Sometimes Asian-Americans are not as comfortable with that as non-Asian-Americans; sometimes non-Asian-Americans simply assume that Asian-Americans are not confident or independent or comfortable socializing. And so Asian-Americans, for whatever reason, miss out on opportunities to rise up the corporate ladder in America. Yang "cites one study showing that while Asian-Americans comprise about 5% of the U.S. population, they make up only 0.3% of corporate officers, fewer than 1% of board members and 2% of college presidents. There are just nine CEOs of Asian descent among the top 500 publicly traded companies." What do you think?
Or all these ideas simply wrong? Your comments appreciated. It's summer time again in China, with temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius or more in many cities. So it's time for me to remind everyone: if the air from your fan hits your microphone, everyone else in class will hear a loud noise.
So remember to point the fan down or to the side. With communications technology like the Internet and the telephone system, people in different places, cities, countries, continents and time zones can talk to each other.
My students do it when they have conference calls with customers, suppliers or colleagues in other countries. I do it every time I give a class online. So this is an issue that affects all of us. I just found an article with tips on making these communications successful, from GigaOM, a website focused on online business.It includes some things I already knew or use, like an international time Meeting Planner, to help me check time in China (where my students are) and Mexico (where I now live). (I also use a small free program from Microsoft called Time Zone, for Windows XP. It's a clock that can show the time in 5 different places.) It also discusses language and preparation issues, like speaking slowly and sending documents in advance. |
G.A.L.E.S.L. / joe3
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