A lot of the content for my classes needs to be tailored to the eastern perspective. It’s not because the students won’t understand it otherwise. Rather, it’s because I could bridge the gap in communication faster if I do so. I’ll explain how I do this in my debate, biblical culture and public speaking classes separately.
The first class I taught at Northeastern University was English public speaking. A lot of the early speeches I showed were from big names like Barack Obama and Steve Jobs. This was fine at first because the students knew them. However, after a while I started playing less well-known people from TED talks. These new people spoke way too fast for the students to comprehend. Also, the topics were too American specific - such as gun control and criminal justice reform. I was slowly losing a connection with the students. I also noticed that in Chinese cultures, a public speaker doesn’t move much during a speech. They typically stand very still and speak almost robotically. As an English public speaking teacher, I was told to teach them a more western style of public speaking. After some research, I found speakers that spoke slower. I threw in some famous Asian celebrities who spoke English.
