CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE CHALLENGES IN EAST INDIAN CLASSROOM

Abstract

Business Communication Teaching in India has its roots in English for Specific/Special Purposes or English for Technical Purposes (ESP/ETP) and its end products feed the recruitment markets worldwide. One assumes a certain degree of homogeneity in terms of industry-ask. A communication classroom is also perceived as having a minimum commonality of goals, competence and curriculum, the world over. What is intangibly heterogeneous, however, is the personal schema of individuals involved, and the complexity therein. Teachers and students of an Indian classroom bring with them their varied cultural contexts. While this definitely contributes to a great amount of healthy diversity of content, both the explicit as well as the implicit, this also creates challenges. Identifying patterns of communicative dissonance in cultural contexts in India and managing those communicative conflicts that arise therefrom, is the purpose of this discourse.