ELI 084 Academic Writing

The Culture of the classroom

            When people are students at the college, they spend much time in the classroom. Therefore, the classroom is a place where the students learn new subjects and share each other. Inside of the classroom produces a certain culture because there are values, rules, discipline, and styles of communication which all are shared among students. It is interesting to see how in other parts of the world the culture inside classroom is different then in the United States. This paper will present the result of a survey about of the differences or similarities of the cultures of the classroom among college in Chile and USA. This survey, in which fifteen students participated, was done at CMU.  Although, the culture of the classroom in Chile and USA may have certain behavior styles seem completely opposite, they are at the same time very similarities from one another.

     Both Chile and United States classroom culture have behavior styles opposite with respect to whether the students disagree or agree with teacher, or whether the students can drink or eat during the lecture. Table.1 below shows the percentages of American students’ replies for the questions asked.

Table 1: Students surveyed about styles behavior.

Question	completely inappropriate or never happens	A little inappropriate or occasionally	appropriate or happens often	very appropriate or always happens
Students disagree with the teacher	20%	70%	10%	0%
Students eat and drink in the classroom	0%	0%	90%	10%

As can be seen from Table 1, when asked if they could disagree with the teacher, surprisingly, 70 % of the students claim “occasionally”. When asked why, most of the American students answered that the teacher is an authority who deserves respect. Only five students considered that in some situation the students could disagree with the teacher. When asked whether they could give examples, the students said that they did disagree when students in the classroom discuss controversial topics. Another example that the students responded was that they usually disagree with teacher when they went over their grade and the result of final exam. In contrast, the students, in Chile, could usually disagree with the teacher during the lecture. For example, generally they disagree with teacher when during the class discusses controversial topics, and some resolution of problems related with infinitesimal calculus. I think that this behavior of the students is typical of the Chilean culture.

     Another difference is related to food and drink inside of the classroom. When requested they could eat and drink in the classroom during lecture. As can be seen from Table 1, 90% of the students answered they almost always ate and drank during lecture. When asked in what situation they could eat and drink in classes, the students explained that they did it because that is already part of their culture. Moreover, the students said that they were getting hungry because they did not sometimes have proper breakfast or lunch. About of the same question, asked whether to eat and to drink could distract the class, most of the students answered “doesn’t matter”, and a few of them said that ate food like snack food, and they did it very quiet. On the other hand, in Chile the student could not eat during lecture because distract the class, in addition the student is seldom that they did it. Also, unlike the American students, the Chilean student is very common that they ate in their at home or after class.

     Although classroom cultures in Chile and in the United States have certain behavior opposite, they also share from each other in many respects. Like students in Chile, American students have similar styles of the communication inside classroom.  They were asked whether they raised their hand before they asked

Table 2: Students surveyed about styles of communication and discipline.

Question	completely inappropriate or never happens	A little inappropriate or occasionally	appropriate or happens often	very appropriate or always happens
students raise their hands before they ask a question	0%	0%	90	10%
Students eat and drink in the classroom	0%	0%	90%	10%
students arrive late to class	90%	10%	0%	0%
students talk to each other at any time	90%	0%	0%	0%
students have to do their homework	5%	15%	80%	0%

a question. As can be seen from Table 2, 90% of them said “appropriate”. They argued that the reason was for respect to the teacher, and for the conversation held an order. Also, the American and Chilean students both do not talk to each other when teacher is giving a lecture. In fact, when asked if they could talk to each other at any time, 90% of them answered “completely inappropriate”. When asked how the teacher handled this situation, in general the students said that the teacher asked them to be quite in order not to distract the class, or simply sometimes the teacher ignores that.

     In the same way that both cultures have similar styles of communication, both have similar styles of discipline for their students.  When requested if the students arrived late to class, 90% of them responded “completely inappropriate” and “almost never happens”. When asked if there was a penalty for that. Most of them answered that there was not penalty. The reason is because both cultures instill respect for others personas and to be responsible from the students are kids. Another common area is about homework. When inquired if the students had to do their homework, 80% of them said “happens often”. Then, asked what happened if they did not turn homework in to the teacher. All of them answered that they did not receive credits from teacher, and sometimes this could affect their final grade. The percentage, only 20%, of failure is low because most students understand that one of their obligation as student is to do the homework that the teacher gives. In addition, most of the teachers include the homeworks within of the grade of every student. That is as an incentive to the students can improve their grade. Similarly, when asked whether the students could leave class early without saying anything to the teacher, 80% of them said “occasionally.” This is because most students consider inappropriate to leave class before lecture finishes, and they only leave of the class before this finishes in cases exceptional such as to go restroom or to have to do some urgent.

     In conclusion, the results demonstrated that the culture in the classroom in Chile and United States have more common areas than differences. However, there is to mention that this survey is not strong enough in trying to conclude each and every person’s attitude about culture inside of the classroom in USA since the number of respondents is limited to fifteen and the surveyed students were only from Mount Pleasant, Michigan. In addition, the survey was contrasted only with knowledge and experience from a graduate student at CMU who come from Chile, and who carried out this survey. It is important to emphasize that in spite of some different between Chile and USA culture in classroom, there are many more similarities. Considering that both cultures represent their countries the survey showed that there are respect for the teacher, there are discipline, and there are behavior styles in both culture.