Shatha Hakmai
01/27/2014
In "American Values and assumptions," Gary Althan implies the most of values that Americans are trained to have and believe in them. The article is beneficial and very easy to comprehend. It talks about many attitudes such as individualism, competitions, equality, informality, work, materialism, directions and assertiveness. Althan lists these values one by one, each is followed by illustrations and details.
These days, a variety of people comes to the U.S either for visiting or for studying; in either case, they might like to know about American's culture and their attitudes to avoid intercultural misunderstanding. Therefore, Althan hits this point very well in his article by reciting the values in such a simple categorizing structure using easy language in order to make it much easier to read and understand. He does not only explain how Americans interact and treat each other, but he also simplifies how to understand these values by explaining in details and mentioning some examples. Although I do not agree with him in some parts, I learned new information about American's manners that I have never known before. I did not know that Americans do not pay a lot of attention for their past and they always "look ahead." On the other hand, as a foreign student, who has lived in the other country for a while, I have different conceptions about individualism, privacy and informality than Americans. In my culture, it is not allowed for people to call their teachers or their managers by their names without using honorific titles, while Americans can do. That is why I've seen some teachers were annoyed when I've called them "teacher" in such a respecting behave, while they dislike it.
In sum, I like the simplicity and the clarification that this article has written in, which I strongly recommend it especially for the foreign students who have to know about Americans manners and their assumptions.
01/27/2014
In "American Values and assumptions," Gary Althan implies the most of values that Americans are trained to have and believe in them. The article is beneficial and very easy to comprehend. It talks about many attitudes such as individualism, competitions, equality, informality, work, materialism, directions and assertiveness. Althan lists these values one by one, each is followed by illustrations and details.
These days, a variety of people comes to the U.S either for visiting or for studying; in either case, they might like to know about American's culture and their attitudes to avoid intercultural misunderstanding. Therefore, Althan hits this point very well in his article by reciting the values in such a simple categorizing structure using easy language in order to make it much easier to read and understand. He does not only explain how Americans interact and treat each other, but he also simplifies how to understand these values by explaining in details and mentioning some examples. Although I do not agree with him in some parts, I learned new information about American's manners that I have never known before. I did not know that Americans do not pay a lot of attention for their past and they always "look ahead." On the other hand, as a foreign student, who has lived in the other country for a while, I have different conceptions about individualism, privacy and informality than Americans. In my culture, it is not allowed for people to call their teachers or their managers by their names without using honorific titles, while Americans can do. That is why I've seen some teachers were annoyed when I've called them "teacher" in such a respecting behave, while they dislike it.
In sum, I like the simplicity and the clarification that this article has written in, which I strongly recommend it especially for the foreign students who have to know about Americans manners and their assumptions.