[Prompt: Describe a meaningful cross-cultural experience you have had that highlights your awareness, understanding and appreciation of interaction with people from diverse backgrounds in a business setting.]

Shake hands at the beginning and end of every social or business meeting. Do not use your title when introducing yourself. Do use others’ titles and their last names when addressing them (until they invite you to do otherwise). These are a few of the unique cultural customs I learned in eastern Germany.

For seven months, I taught international business English in Chemnitz, Germany. The experience heightened my awareness, understanding, and appreciation of people from diverse backgrounds.
I primarily worked at the local university, but I was contracted on several occasions to other institutions and businesses. One school I worked for, Euro-Schulen Chemnitz, had many teachers from particularly diverse backgrounds. The different life experiences (including diverse nationalities, family customs, community mores, religious beliefs, ethnic background, and socio-economic levels) made for a particularly interesting faculty, and working there challenged my understanding of different people.

Teachers congregated in a break room between classes to discuss their impressions of teaching and living in a foreign culture. We universally agreed that our preconceived notions about Germans were mistaken. Certainly, efficiency, punctuality, and industriousness were apparent in some of the individuals we taught, but such hackneyed cultural archetypes were no more common than the fiercely independent, gun-touting Americans of Hollywood myth.

We also discussed the difficulties we faced in teaching students whose approach to learning was so different from our own. Teachers from different backgrounds shared their thoughts on education and problem-solving styles. Certain methods were unorthodox for some, the norm for others. Nonetheless, we worked as a multi-national team to help our students achieve their objectives.

At times, I struggled to motivate my German students. High unemployment, business closures, and discrimination from western Germans left even the most highly educated of my students feeling hopeless. Other teachers experienced the same problem, and many provided valuable insights since they had grown up in countries with similar economic and social conditions.

I had never experienced discrimination personally. I had never witnessed a wide-scale economic slowdown. To understand eastern Germans better, I discussed the differences between American and German cultures with my students. I described my culture and encouraged them to describe theirs. To give each student an opportunity to contribute to the group, I learned to leverage the unique characteristics of each. As my understanding of the students grew, I was able to develop better lesson plans and teaching methods. In the end, their level of motivation rose, and there was greater trust in the classroom.

點評：

此文描述了在德國的教學經歷以及與學生溝通中對兩國文化差異的認識。但從寫作手法以及文章重點同樣存在問題：

寫作手法

從文章的開頭到結尾并沒有讓讀者看到一個很深刻的事例。只是淡淡的描述了自己在教育工作中的所見所聞。直到文章的結尾才開始進入描述個人的對跨國文化認識。給人的感覺完全是流水脹的將自己的經歷紀錄下來。對于描述經歷然后再談個人的認識理解，必須是通過一個目的明確和生動的事例。

文章重點不明確

此文究竟想重點應該是突出對商務交際與認識呢？還是作者對東德教育的認識，還是突出兩國各大文化的差距，還是對德國經濟生活條件的看法。作者是否可以抓住最后一段所提到信任與溝通為重點，表明不同的文化、異種只要通過人與人之間相互的理解與信任，這樣才能更好的進行交流和溝通。

譯文：

提示:描述你經歷過的一次能深化你對跨文化商務交際的認識與理解,并能加深你對這種交流的喜愛和有意義的跨文化交際經歷.

在每次一般性的社會會議或商業會議的開始與結束的時候,出于禮貌,都應與會者握手. 在介紹自己的時候不應加入自己的頭銜.在稱呼別人的時候,除非對方希望你這樣做,一般不要加入別人的頭銜和姓,這樣并不禮貌.而在東德我也學會了一些當地特有的文化習俗.

我在德國的開姆尼茨市進行了7個月的國際商務英語的教學.這份經歷深化了我對跨文化交際的的認識與理解,我也漸漸喜歡上了這種交流.

最開始我在一間當地的大學工作,而同時我也在一些機構和商業集團任職.在我工作的其中一間學校, 開姆尼茨歐洲學校里有許多來自不同文化背景的老師.不同的生活經歷(不同的國家生活,不同的家庭習俗,不同的社交圈子,不同的宗教信仰,不同的民族背景,不同的社會經濟水平等)使我們的學院氛圍變得很有趣,而且在這樣的工作環境下我也鍛煉了自己與不同背景人相處的能力.

課間老師們都會聚在休息間談論在這樣一個異域文化里教學與生活的感受.我們大都贊成德國人在大家固有印象中都是被誤解了.當然,高效,嚴謹,勤奮這些品質在一些我們所教的學生中展露無遺,但是這種陳腐的典型文化形態已經在日益風行的好萊塢迷幻式的高度獨立,武器泛濫的美國文化下相形見絀.

我們也談到了在與我們自己學習方式不同的學生在進行教導時候的困難.來自不同背景的教師們互相分享了各自對教學及問題解決方法的見解.有的方式對于某些老師來說也許是異端非常規的方法,而對其他的一些老師而言則是慣用手法.無論如何,我們作為一個跨國教學團隊盡力地幫助學生們努力達成自己的目標.

有時我也會盡力去鼓勵我的德國學生。高失業率，經濟的蕭條以及在工作上來自西德人的偏見等甚至讓我的大部分擁有高學歷的學生感到未來很渺茫.許多同樣面臨這種問題的老師，因為他們都曾與現在類似德國經濟環境般的國家生活過,都能提供很多寶貴實用的建議.

我個人從未有過被歧視的經歷.我也從未見證過大范圍的經濟衰退.為了更好地理解東德,我與學生們討論過美國文化與德國文化的差別.我向大家用自己的語言形容了美國文化,然后鼓勵他們也描述一下自己的文化.為了讓每位同學都有機會對自己所在的組做出貢獻,我學著去發掘每位同學獨特的性格特質.隨著我對同學們的了解加深,我也能制定出更好更適合大家的計劃和教學方法.后來,他們的士氣與學習勁頭得到了很大提升,而大家也對彼此有了更大的相互信任。