Page 39 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

24 Reading Between the Signs

successful in their foreign ventures. What qualities did they pos-
sess that helped them meet the challenges of living in a different
culture?
By contrast, one group of professionals who did share their
frustrations with their colleagues were foreign student advisers
on college campuses around the United States. With the influx of
foreign students in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, who came to
the United States to study at the undergraduate and graduate lev-
els, these advisers were struck by the cultural adjustment prob-
lems they perceived the students to be struggling with, both in
regard to the American educational system and to society at large.
They were responsive when a loose organization for exchanging
ideas, the Intercultural Communication Network, was formed, with
its center at the University of Pittsburgh. The Network sponsored
exploratory intercultural communication workshops (ICWs) with
foreign and American students that tackled cultural issues and
became a model for many other programs around the country. It
also led to the publication of a national newsletter, Communique
(Dahlen 1997, 35–38).
Another important event that led to the development of the
field of intercultural communication was the establishment of the
Peace Corps in the early 1960s by President Kennedy. Much like
the frustrations experienced by the ill-prepared diplomats, early
Peace Corps volunteers registered complaints that their “univer-
sity model” training was insufficient to prepare them for the reali-
ties of life in a different culture. Trainers soon realized that the
missing piece was an orientation to the experiential aspects of
crossing cultures. It was found, for example, that feelings of frus-
tration and disorientation (now termed culture shock) can be an-
ticipated and prepared for by giving volunteers a taste of these
feelings before they ever leave home.
Peace Corps trainers tried different types of experiential train-
ing techniques, which mirrored the interest in experiential learn-
ing during the 1960s in general. Instead of relying solely on di-
dactic lectures about the country to which volunteers would be
sent, trainers adapted role plays, simulation games, and other
exercises borrowed from the newly popular “sensitivity training”
movement. They stressed the importance of being sensitive to
differences in cultural values and pointed out that people from
other cultures may interpret our behavior in ways we did not in-
tend. Creative thinking and problem-solving exercises, trainers and

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