Subject Students’ data Date

Intercultural Surname: Galan

Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

Task. Mediation activities for the EFL classroom

1.Target group

The group to which the activity was applied is a group of 16 people who study
English as a foreign language in the “adult program” of an English academy where
they are all grouped according to their level. There are 7 women and 5 men in the
class, the English level of this group is B1+, their ages range from 16 to 21 years old,
and there are no students with special needs in this class. Students have classes one
hour a day, four times a week. They understand videos in English quite well, but it is
better if we use English subtitles with them.

Classroom arrangement.- Students' desks are divided into groups of 4.

Time length per session: 60 mins
Objectives.-
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to…
-Analyse the impact of a different culture in an immigrant who just came to live to
Ecuador
-Role-play two people discussing the differences between Ecuador and The USA.
-Apply mediation to explain a custom or tradition that might be difficult to
understand for an immigrant or tourist.

Lesson Procedure.-
Session 1

Introduction (10 mins).-

The teacher enters the class and greets their students with a “Good afternoon,

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

class”. All of the students get up from their seats and answer the same way. The
teacher takes time to check the class attendance before starting with the class.
The teacher presents a picture on the TV of the class where students are able to see
a person bowing to another one, and they see how this other person is very
confused.

(https://iowalum.com/what-is-culture-shock)

The teacher asks the students to take 30 secs to think about what could possibly be
happening in the picture. After those 30 secs, the teacher asks students to discuss
with the classmates in their groups about what they think is happening there.
Students take one minute to talk with their classmates about their perceptions on
what is occuring in the picture. After a minute has passed, the teacher asks group by
group what their impressions on the picture are.

One of the students in a group says “We believe that the men in the pictures are
from different nationalities, and that is why they greet each other differently”.
“Where do you think they are from?” the teacher asks.
Another member of the same group says “I believe one of them is probably from

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

some place in Asia and the other one is American”

“Very well,” says the teacher. “Do you guys agree with your classmates?” inquiries
the teacher again, this time, to another of the 4 groups in the room.
A girl from the second group says “Yes, we agree. I think the man bowing is probably
from Japan.”
“And what makes you think that?” says the teacher.
The girl answers “Japanese people do this a lot. Or at least, they do in Doramas and
anime”.
“Al right! That is very interesting information. Now, why do you think the other man
seems confused?” asks the teacher to the third group in the room.
One of the boys in that group says “We think that the man is confused because he
has probably never seen someone doing that as a greeting. He probably knows
nothing about Japan or any other Asian country.”
At that moment, a girl from the 4th group raised her hand to ask for permission to
answer. After getting it, she adds “Also, he probably didn’t know the person he was
talking to was from a different country and had a different culture since they didn’t
know each other.”
“Yeah, you are all very correct!” says the teacher “So, they are both from different
cultures, then.” The teachers write the word “culture” on the board.
“No, I would like you guys to tell me why you think that the difference in cultures
creates confusion in some people”.
One of the boys says “Probably because they don’t understand other people’s
customs. It’s difficult to understand something you don’t know”
“Okay! So, lack of knowledge on other people’s culture. Great!” says the teacher.
“Has this ever happened to you? Is there any custom from other countries that you
find surprising or weird?”
“Yes,” one of the girls says. “I once went to the USA and it was very weird for me
how they had a HUGE meal for dinner but they ate just a sandwich or something

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

very small for lunch when it is the opposite here in Ecuador. At lunch time, I was like
“Is this it?” I was very confused.”
Another student mentions “I was in the USA once, too. What was surprising for me
was that there weren’t these cristal separations between the bank teller and the
customers. The whole bank seemed very unprotected. It was very shocking because
it is totally different from Ecuador.”
“You are completely correct!” mentions the teacher. “It is very weird. There are a lot
of things that we find different from other countries. Now, do you think that there
are things like that, things that can shock other people, from our own culture”?
“Yes, of course” say the students.
“So, here is what we are going to do. You guys are going to work in groups and you
are going to create a list of 10 things you believe might be difficult for immigrants to
understand”.

Group Activity (15 mins).-

Students will work in groups to discuss the things they consider will be most difficult
for American immigrants or tourists to understand about living in Ecuador. The
teacher tells the students to create a chart where they will write ten things they
believe can be most difficult for immigrants to understand in one of the sides, and
then write why those things will be difficult to understand for them. The teacher
tells students that they are free to use the internet in their phones to look up
information if they need it. The teacher tells the students to prepare to speak
because all of them will come in front of the class and explain at least one of the
traditions or customs that they chose and why these will be difficult to understand
for foreing people.
The teacher works as a facilitator and moves around the class to help students in
case they don’t know how to explain something or if they need more ideas. The

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

teacher moves around controlling the student's work and checking that they keep
using the target language.

Group presentation.- (20 mins)

After all students have finished writing their lists and explanations, the four groups
will have time to go in front of the class and explain what they discussed with their
classmates. Each group goes one by one and each of the members explain at least
two of the things they had put into the list. Some of the groups have some of the
cultural aspects repeated, which is normal, but they all offer different points as to
why they think these will be difficult for other people to understand.

Wrap up (10 mins).-

After they have all finished presenting, the teachers ask them to think for 5 mins
how they could help people from the USA to understand one of those customs
better and to write their answers on a piece of paper. The teacher gives a total of 10
mins to think and write their answers. After that, the teacher tells them to keep
those ideas with them because they will use them in the next class.

Session 2

Warm up (5 mins).-
The teacher enters the room and greets the students. The teacher uses a program to
choose two people from the group to come into the front of the class and explain
what they did last class. They mention how they discussed differences in culture and
how this can shock people when they are met with a custom or situation that they
didn’t know happened in the normality of another culture or country. They also
mention how they were told to think of how they could explain their customs in a

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

way people from the USA would understand. The teacher thanks them for their
summary and asks them to go back to their seats.

Introduction (10 mins).-

The teacher tells the students to bring out the ideas they wrote on paper yesterday
and to keep them on their desks. The teacher mentions that last class they learned
how their own culture could be difficult to understand for some people outside our
country and why. She mentions that now they were going to see a video made by
American people living in Ecuador and how the cultural differences made it very
difficult for them.
The teacher asks them to pay careful attention to and to take notes on what they
were about to watch because the activity they would do later had to do directly with
the things that were about to be mentioned in the video.

Discussion(10 mins) .-
The teacher asks students what they think about what they saw in the video. The
teacher asks them to discuss two questions with their classmates in their groups
and gives them 3 mins to talk about it. The questions are “What do you think of how
the man and lady in the video felt about our country?” and “Why do you think they
experienced that shock”. After waiting three minutes, the teachers ask each of the
groups to offer some answers. The first group mentioned that they understood very
well how they felt about the prices and how they were charged more than normal
for being “gringos” since it was something that a lot of people did and it was very
wrong in their opinions. Another group mentioned that they were confused when
the man in the video mentioned how weird it was for him that he had to pay for
utilities separately. One of the girls in the group said “Like, isn’t that normal?” but
she also mentioned that it must be as weird for him not to have the chance to pay
all in one as it was for her to know that they could do that in the USA.

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

After the group discussion, the teacher told them that they were going to apply the
ideas they had taught about in the previous class in a role play activity.

Role play activity (30 mins).-

Students are told to pair up to role play two people. One of them will be an
American Immigrant getting used to living in Ecuador and who is complaining about
one thing that they found very confusing about Ecuador and asking for answers
from an Ecuadorian friend of theirs who is helping them settle in. The other person
will be the Ecuadorian friend who will try to explain this custom or tradition that is
confusing their friend in the best way possible. The teacher tells students that they
can use background information from the internet, stories, or anything that can help
their friend understand the reason for the custom or tradition that they are having
problems understanding, but that THEY CANNOT TRANSLATE information for them.
They just need to explain in their own words to make themselves understand.
The teacher tells the students that they will have 15 mins to create and practise the
dialogue, which should be up to 2 mins. Students are told to choose the custom or
tradition from the ones mentioned in the video or from the ones they wrote about
the previous class.
While students work in the dialogues, the teacher moves around the class and offers
help when necessary.
When the 15 mins are up, each of the groups come to the front of the class and
present their role-play numbers. The teachers watch them closely and give them
feedback and quick corrections when they finish their dialogues.

Wrap up (5 mins).- Students are told to ask questions if they have one, and the
teacher takes time to answer the doubts and clear some misunderstandings. Before
finishing the class, the teacher asks their students to take one minute to write on a
piece of paper why they think it is important to be able to explain our culture to

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

people from other countries. The students are free to go after handing in the piece
of paper with their answers to the teacher. The teacher says goodbye to all of them
and the class is over.

Unit 4. Exercises
 Subject Students’ data Date
Intercultural Surname: Galan
Communication and May 09th 2022
Language Teaching Name: Alison

References

Allen, S. (n.d.). What is Culture Shock? Iowalum.com. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from

https://iowalum.com/what-is-culture-shock/

Amelia. (n.d.). CULTURE SHOCK IS VERY REAL! YouTube. Retrieved June 10, 2021,

from https://youtu.be/m8b8J7E2vYE?t=44

Unit 4. Exercises