Blog 4- During Service

1.  Our family from Burma has began to feel much more comfortable with us being around. They act more natural as opposed to being formal to impress us. As time has progressed, I have noticed the mother of our Burmese family become more assertive in her parenting style.  She began to raise her voice and make harsh gestures at the children when they disrespected her. The mother has been improving greatly with her reading skills.  She is finally beginning to understand and interpret what she is reading, rather than simply saying unfamiliar words.  We have began making conversation with her more now that she understands us better.  however, there are many times where miscommunication occurs and we must use descriptions, gestures or drawings to communicate.

2.  Our family has become much more comfortable with us as we become more familiar.  They have welcomed us into their home as if we are a part of their family rather than part of an out-group.  It seems that they are experiencing less culture shock as they begin to understand our language better.  The family follows a high power distance lifestyle. Elders are always respected.  When children disrespect their elders there are harsh consequences.  The mother of our family yells at her children and makes hand gestures to them in attempt to save and maintain her authority face. Her hand gestures are a form on nonverbal communication to signal to the children that she is very mad and they need to calm down.  We use nonverbal communication a lot with the family.  Sometimes there is no direct translation for a word we are trying to use.  In this case we will use actions, drawings or the internet to depict the message we are trying to convey. As the mother learns, she is understanding connotative meanings and interpreting words and sentences for herself.  Instead of simply reading, she is reading and comprehending.  We learned that by repeating the same story or book several times, she picks up on the meaning of the story.  We enjoy talking about the stories we read and making conversation. It is important to do this with the family so that they can feel more confident out in the real world when they do things such as shopping or going to the doctor.

3.  In our final visit with the family, we are going to give them tips for living in America.  We want them to feel comfortable here and adapt to our language and culture.  We are going to incorporate the children into the activity or conversation so they will not feel excluded, and so the mother will not have to discipline them. We will continue reading with the mother for comprehension skills.  We want to encourage her to continue reading English books to her children.  The children are still very young, so we would like for them to be integrated into the American culture while still maintaining their cultural roots from Burma.  It will be important for the entire family to understand English as the children grow and enter school.