Creation: Culture Shock

Talking about culture shock is recurrent in the English classroom. This post is about it.





A. Read the definition below about Culture shock.


Culture shock refers to the anxiety and feeling (of surprise, disorientation, uncertainty, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within a different and unknown culture such as one may encounter in a foreign country. It grows out of the difficulties in assimilating the new culture, causing difficulty in knowing what is appropriate and what is not. This is often combined with a dislike for or even disgust, moral or aesthetics, with certain aspects of the new or different culture.
Information taken from Wikipedia

I. Talk to a partner about the following questions:

1. Have you traveled to another country? Which country or place has the most different culture from yours? Explain it.


2. What is the longest time that you have lived outside of your country (city)? Talk about this experience.


3. Do you think you are open to new ideas and different cultures? Explain it.


4. Would you like to live in another country if you spoke the language? What if you didn't speak the language?


5. Have you ever had culture shock? Talk about it.


6. Suppose one of your American friends goes to your country and will stay there for a while, what kind of culture shock he/she will experience?


7. How different or varied is culture inside your own country? Explain it and give examples.




B. Now read the definition of Reverse Culture shock, taken from Wikipedia, and discuss the questions that follow:


Reverse Culture Shock — returning to one's home culture after growing accustomed to a new one can produce the same effects as described above. This results from the psychosomatic and psychological consequences of the readjustment process to the primary culture. The affected person often finds this more surprising and difficult to deal with than the original culture shock.

1. What's the difference between culture shock and reverse culture shock?

2. Do you think they are facts or myths? Why?

C. Now watch the video segment from the movie Creation and answer the questions that follow. The scene is about Charles Darwin's experiment with a tribe of Indians:

1. Describe the experiment.


2. Did it work out? Justify your answer.


3. What conclusions can you reach from this experiment?


4. Did the children have culture shock? Explain it.


5. What about reverse culture shock? Justify your answer.


6. What could be done for this experiment to work out?


7. Read the symptoms of (Reverse) Culture Shock and check the ones you believe the children had when they were in England.



( ) Sadness, loneliness, depression


( ) Anger, increased irritability


( ) Loss of identity, sense of self


( ) Lack of confidence


( ) Feelings of insecurity, like excessive fear of being injured.


( ) Terrible longing to be back home


( ) Confusion, unable to solve simple problems



7. What about after the children returned home? Check the reverse culture shock symptoms, if any, that they had back in their original tribe.


D. Work in groups and prepare a list of the most important cultural features of your country that a foreigner will have to adapt to in order not to have culture shock.
Write at least 5 different points

1. ....................................................................

2 ...................................................................

3 ....................................................................

4 ....................................................................

5 ....................................................................


MOVIE SEGMENT DOWNLOAD - CREATION