02/19/2022 - W07 – Differences in Manners

     Behave yourself! This is a phrase that many mothers say to their children. To be good and educated citizens, mothers teach their children good manners. As a mother, I could never imagine before studying this course that good manners in my point of view could be interpreted as bad manners by other cultures and vice versa.

     According to Cambridge Dictionary, manner is the way in which something is done; the usual way in which you behave towards other people, or the way you behave on a particular occasion. So what we say and how our body behaves is considered manner. Talking loudly, talking softly, getting close, or touching are different ways of behaving that often annoy people. Even laughing in some circumstances can be considered inappropriate according to each culture.

     Schools often discipline students who misbehave, but this discipline may not be fair to students from different cultures, because according to their cultural paradigms, the ways they behave are correct.


     The teacher needs to be aware of the challenges that he may encounter in a classroom with students from different countries. Not being offended by a student's behavior helps you understand the reason for the behavior. Even if the teachers and the school want to discipline the students, it is important not to blame them and not to embarrass them. A teacher knows how to deal better with a misunderstanding than a student when being reprimanded, especially in cases of different cultures. Perhaps, a student talks very loudly every time he talks in the classroom and another student doesn't say much and doesn't participate much in class.

     What I have learned from studying TESOL is not to be judgmental about students and not to create expectations based on my own cultural paradigms. Even if everyone's goal is the same, that is, learning a new language, the way each student will travel this path will be different.

Lilian Perez.


           This is an interesting video to learn manners around the world.