Drawing in Two Hands: Communication Accommodation with Individuals from Different Cultural Backgrounds

Even though the number of international students and employees within US organizations is increasing (Rivas, Burke, and Hale, 2019), intercultural differences, language barriers, and a desire to avoid conflict and/or offensive language continue to be common communication struggles for both American and international individuals (Rivas et al., 2019; Subtirelu et al., 2022). Hoffman & Zhang (2022) explain that many people also avoid intercultural communication because they struggle to simultaneously maintain their culture and respect others’ cultures due to different cultural interpretations/meanings ascribed to verbal and nonverbal communication (e.g., eye contact as aggressive or respectful). When members of different cultural backgrounds interact, they are potentially opposed to each other because of their different expectations/perceptions, creating a clear sense of “us” and “them” (Gallois, Watson, and Giles, 2018). Such communication can be tense and hostile, and it can descend into overt discrimination and misunderstandings. Thus, understanding and negotiating intercultural conflict is imperative to resolving misunderstandings.

Cultural competency is the management of human interactions across our differences, with results of more appropriate and effective outcomes at the individual, relational, group, and organizational levels (Engseth, 2018). Communication accommodation theory (CAT) and its three key accommodation strategies can be beneficial to overcome those tensions in intercultural communication and help people grow in cultural competency (Hoffman & Zhang, 2022). Convergence refers to individual strategies to adapt to another person’s communication behavior. Divergence is when people emphasize communication differences between themselves and others (Goodwin, 2019). Maintenance means when the communicator is keeping their communication behavior intact. According to Mdletye (2022), the dominant challenge in successful intercultural communication is the unwillingness or refusal to acquire knowledge unfamiliar with the ways of life people have become used to. Therefore, this activity allows students to leave their comfort zone and learn to accommodate different cultural norms/perceptions. By using communication accommodation strategies, students will learn the challenges of communicating across cultures; how to adjust their communication when experiencing resistance; and finally, how to understand different cultural perspectives and thereby increase their willingness to work effectively with people from different cultures.

The activity

The activity takes a maximum of 45 minutes to complete.

Preparation and materials needed

• Before starting the activity, students should receive a 20-30-minute lecture about cultural competency, cultural misunderstandings (language barrier, nonverbal communication), and communication accommodation theory (convergence, divergence, and maintenance).
• The instructor will provide each student with a piece of paper. Students can use their pen, pencil, or colored pencils (based on their creative preference).

Round 1: Creating My Culture (10 minutes)

1. First, the instructor will divide the room into two equal groups: students from planet Mars and students from planet Venus.
2. The instructor will give each student a piece of paper with instructions explaining their planet’s cultural environment and communication style (see Appendices A and B below).
3. When students are ready, they will draw a picture of their favorite place on their planet, following the instructions mentioned on their instruction paper.
4. After finishing their drawing, all students will flip over their paper to keep them private.

Round 2: Maintaining Our Cultures (two to three minutes)

1. Students from planet Mars will leave everything on their desks and travel empty-handed to planet Venus and find a partner. Students will not talk to each other or share their drawings.
2. After finding a partner, both students will hold the same pen/pencil in their hands and draw one picture on the blank side of the student’s paper from planet Venus. Students will draw their favorite place on their planet without communicating to one another while strictly maintaining their own planet’s cultural environment per their instructions from the first round.
3. In this round, students will experience force/resistance as no person will give up their own culture while drawing with their partners. After finishing this round, students will have about 10 minutes to engage in discussion questions with their drawing partners (see Debriefing section).

Final Round: Accommodating Our Cultures (two to three minutes)

1. In this round, the instructor will give the students from planet Venus a new sheet of paper. Holding the same pen/pencil, they will again draw their favorite place from their planets. But this time, they will communicate the strategies that they discussed after Round 2 and apply those strategies in this final drawing. They will begin to communicate together to create something that ideally represents a merging of both cultures.

Debriefing

This activity can be beneficial for students on understanding cultural uniqueness and negotiating conflicts/misunderstandings while working with others. For example, in Round 1, students will be comfortable as they maintain their own culture and work individually. In Round 2, however, they start interacting/working across cultural groups. People from both planets face resistance/force as they strictly maintain their own culture and do not communicate with each other while drawing and experiencing resistance, which can be used as a metaphor for conflict. Using the theoretical concepts discussed in the opening lecture, students are prepared to then engage in a discussion using the following guiding questions:

• What struggles were you facing when drawing with your partners?
• Give three to four reasons for struggling with your partner (be specific).
• What strategies from today’s lecture can both of you implement to improve your drawing with a partner from a different planet and stop the resistance you are feeling? Come up with as much as you can.

Thus, in the final round, both groups are again drawing together, and this time, they are striving for effective communication and utilizing strategies of cultural competency (e.g., negotiation), and accommodating culture (adjusting/compromising/coming to the middle ground) to negotiate resistance/force (conflict) to work effectively. After they finish the final round, students can then engage in another series of discussion questions:

• How well do you think you accommodated each other in this round?
• What were the difficulties, if any, this time?
• Did you feel/experience any power differences while working with people from different cultural backgrounds on a new planet? If so, explain why.
• How will this activity help you in a real-life situation where you communicate or work with different cultural people outside the class?

Appraisal

Students’ enthusiasm for this activity indicates the activity is highly effective in providing them with opportunities to learn more about intercultural communication. This activity can be assessed in two ways: First, this activity can be completed as a singular class activity to engage students in applying cultural competency concepts and strategies. The debriefing discussion allows instructors to gauge students’ main takeaways and understanding of course concepts. Students could also be asked to write a one-minute paper or longer reflection paper about their key takeaways from the activity, such as experiencing and/or overcoming challenges in working with people in real life from different cultural backgrounds both inside and outside of the classroom.

This activity is designed to give students practice working with people from different cultural backgrounds/beliefs/norms while learning:

1. the complexities/struggles/conflicts of working with different groups of people,
2. the causes of those complexities/struggles/conflicts (different beliefs/ norms/perceptions, etc.),
3. and strategies to mitigate those complexities and accommodate with different cultural people while working (cultural competency, communication accommodation theory).

In essence, we have found this exercise incredibly powerful for our students, many of whom report they enjoyed the activity and learned to become more understanding while working with people from different cultural backgrounds/perceptions. This activity boosts the students’ interest and confidence in communicating with people from different cultures as they learn to implement the concept of cultural competency and communication accommodation theory in practical situations. With increasing global interaction across a variety of institutions, this activity will benefit students by increasing their confidence and interest in having conversations with different cultural groups as they learn about communication strategies and theory through this activity.

Appendix A: Instructions for People on Planet Venus

The cultural environment and communication style of Venus
You all belong to Planet Venus. You have a different culture, language, and different values. Interestingly, nobody speaks on your planet. The only medium of communication is drawing. You express your feelings and opinion through art. Also, the structure of your planet is quite different. Everything on your planet is in “triangle shape.” The house is in triangle (base of house, roof is in triangle). People look like triangles. Trees, cars, and all other things are in triangle shape.

Instructions

1. I will ask you to draw your one favorite place on your planet (e.g., coffee house, street, house, school campus, etc.). But you must do it according to your cultural environment (everything is in triangle). You can use colored pencils to make it look more appealing and creative.
2. Keep your drawing private.
3. Do not talk to other planet people while you are drawing.
4. After finishing your drawing, I will put you in a situation (Round 2). In the new situation, you may experience resistance/force based on your communicative choices (Be ready for that!).

Appendix B: Instructions for People on Planet Mars

The cultural environment and communication style of Mars
You all belong to Planet Mars. You have a different culture, language, and different values. Interestingly, nobody speaks on your planet. The only medium of communication is drawing. You express your feelings and opinion through art. Also, the structure of your planet is quite different. Everything on your planet is in “circle shape”. The house is in circle (base of house, roof is in circle). People look like circles. Trees, cars, and all other things are in circle shape.

Instructions

1. I will ask you to draw your one favorite place on your planet (e.g., coffee house, street, house, school campus, etc.). But you must do it according to your cultural environment (everything is in a circle). You can use colored pencils to make it look more appealing and creative.
2. Keep your drawing private.
3. Do not talk to other planet people while you are drawing.
4. After finishing your drawing, I will put you in a situation (round 2). In a new situation, you may experience resistance/force based on your communicative choices (Be ready for that!)