Intercultural Competence: the YOGA form

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I had never sat down and reflected on my intercultural competence before. By using the YOGA form I tried to assess and understand what intercultural competence is. I realized how important it is to have a cross cultural preparation nowadays: it is not only important if you work or study abroad, but it is also significant for other reasons. For example, if you simply go on holiday abroad, I believe, you need to be prepared and you need to know how you are expected to behave within a different culture. Of course, it is impossible to deeply know all cultures all over the world, but the awerness of the existence of other cultures besides ours is crucial.

Right now, I'm attending a course of international business at the Chamber of Commerce and from the very first lessons we were told how important it is to know other cultures, their differences and their similarities. We learned how similar situations are handled in different ways according to the country in which they take place.

I think I know the german culture better than any other since I've lived for one year in Germany when I went on Erasmus and now I go very often there. Before using the YOGA form I never examined my intercultural development. If I think about that, I realize that when I'm abroad I always attempt to integrate myself in with people who live there and I always try to communicate in the host language (of course when I can speak it), otherwise I communicate in English. It can happen that I see that some aspects of the host country's culture are very different from my own and if I have the possibilty I like to talk with people about it . It can be a nice comparison but it must be well-balanced.

Reading the YOGA form I realized that it takes a lot of time to deeply get to know host cultures. I think the most important thing to keep in mind is the attitude with which you face new situations and contexts. I personally went abroad many times and, as I like travelling, I always try to spend my holidays as far as possible. When I'm going to visit a new country I always try to get information about it before my departure even though I know that only by living there and being in contact with people I have the chance to know that society. In the end I can say that the self-evaluation guide helped me to analyze some aspects of my behaviour that I didn't considered before and I realized that although I don't know deeply many cultures I have a very postive attitude towards everything that is new to me and I hope in the future I can develop my intercultural competence more and more.