Inter Cultural Competence: Teaching in Thailand
All teachers face new challenges everyday and strive to be effective teachers and often they attain best practice in their field. In Thailand many are hired to teach with little or no previous teaching experience in an inter cultural setting or worst even of teaching in any setting. Foreign teachers find themselves confronted by a new set of challenges which often puts into question what they previously accepted and implemented as best practice. Teaching across cultures is no easy task and demands new strategies and ways of thinking. Many teachers are neither prepared for the reorientation needed or the consequences of such interactions and will struggle to adapt or fail to modify their behavior to take account of the new cultural setting in which they find themselves. Identifying and understanding the cultural dimensions that underpin the interactions in the new setting is a starting point. Applying cross cultural communication strategies can mitigate the difficulties encountered by both the foreign teacher and the hosts and both can obtain a broader perspective of their cultural positions to achieve not just a level of cultural awareness or sensitivity but the cultural competence to create relationships that maximise positive contributions and ensure effective productive relationships are formed to benefit all stakeholders.