I gained a knowledge of the culture of the time that I thought was important to know as a second language teacher. Because students can belong to a country or they were raised up that is either monochronic culture or polychronic culture. A monochronic person is strictly on their schedule and they just like to do one thing at a time, and they value the commitment of being there on time. They do not value interruptions. While the polychronic people like to do multiple things at the same time and they value the relationship and family. They can manage the interruption well and are more flexible when it comes to change. Teachers should know the culture of each students to avoid misunderstandings.
I realized that I belonged to polychronic culture. because I just found out that there is a time culture. It’s embarrassing to say that Filipinos have a culture of late in attending meetings or late started the meetings. And there is a saying… “Late is better than absent.” And we valued the relationship of family friends and to people close to us. I also learned about the characteristics of monochronic culture and which countries have that kind of culture. This knowledge can greatly help me as a teacher to understand my students in their performance in class.
My question is how would you deal with the students who have a differences in time culture?
Based on the knowledge I have received my home culture can improve when I came to know the culture of others and understood it. Share our culture and beliefs with others so that they can recognize us and keep our minds open to accepting others’ cultural knowledge. We can adjust ourselves and be flexible in dealing with people of different cultures. For example we are polychronic people and we are in the other place that we came into contact with monochronic people we have to deal with and respect their belief in their time culture, that is too committed in the scheduled time, focus on one thing at a time and without interruption. And if we are willing to accept others despite the cultural differences it may not have a problem of misunderstanding.
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