When I was in primary school (about 11 or 12 years of age), my family hosted a bible study meeting involving several Singaporean families from my church. This meeting was held in my house. In that meeting, there was a family from Africa who joined us as they were visiting my church. After the bible study, the Singaporean kids started to play video games using the Playstation One which I owned. One of the young kids from that African family, who was around 10 years of age, wanted to join us in our gaming session. Hence, my friends and I decided to extend our hand of friendship to him.
In order to make him feel welcome, we decided to ask him questions about himself to get to know him better. However, we soon encountered a very big problem, He spoke with such a thick accent, that it was IMPOSSIBLE to understand him. Many times, after he said something, we resorted to repeating the word “Huh?” many times, thus making the poor guy repeat his sentences again and again. It was only after multiple repetitions that my friends and I could understand a little of what he said. Most of what he said still escaped our comprehension. I could see a clearly evident look of confusion on my friend’s face as we tried (and failed) to achieve effective interpersonal communication with that African kid. As for me, I felt quite frustrated at my inability to understand the kid’s English. After playing with us for awhile, the African boy left us to join his parents. Maybe he too was frustrated at our inability to effectively communicate with one other, that he gave up trying to hang out with us?
I guess this situation is clearly a case of ineffective intercultural communication. Do any of you have any suggestions on how this situation could have been improved so that effective communication could have taken place instead? Thanks for your comments =)
