Hongchul : Assignment #3

According to the reading article, “There are five intercultural communication stumbling blocks, Language, Nonverbal Signs and Symbols, Preconceptions and Stereotypes, The Tendency to Evaluate, and High Anxiety.” All of them seems difficult and confusing to international students at first. Among them language is the most difficult stumbling block for me to overcome. Based on my experience, old man who visits other countries is apt to train stumbling blocks except language as time passes. Learning the language is harder than that others because linguistic ability of human begins to decrease as he grows up.
Here is an interesting episode related to language barrier.
Just before I left my country to study in the US, my senior officer told me a funny episode related to intercultural communication problem.
There was one Korean student. Attending the first class, the student focused his mind on the class and tried to understand what the professor said. But he did not comprehend the class well. The less he understood, the harder he is at his class. Most classmates was surprised to see his devotion to the class and considered him as an outstanding student or a genius. At the time of class dismissal professor assigned difficult problems as homework. Most students could not solve the homework because the problem is beyond their abilities. Finally they concluded that it was better to ask the Korean student for advice since he already got the solution. When they said, “Did you get the solution about the homework?” the Korean student answered, “Do we have any homework?”
Other students couldn’t answer any word.
Actually the story mentioned above is somewhat exaggerated. However, it shows the real difficulties which an international student can encounter. As stated above, language may be considered as the most difficult stumbling block.