Choose a place like a Starbucks Coffee Shop, Small Cafe, or other public place like a retail store. Take note as to whether or not the customers interact with one another and special note of how the workers interact with the customers.
This observation should be done somewhere other than on campus. Try to choose a place where people from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds gather and interact. You are observing to see how they engage in intercultural communication and interaction. You are looking to see if certain ethnic or cultural groups tend to sit and interact together, are there people of different cultures or ethnic backgrounds sitting near one another but not interacting to communicating.
Conducting an effective observation requires the special skill of paying close attention to details. Unlike interviewing people, much of data gained through observation is subjected to your preconceived beliefs or ideas. Below are a few steps for conducting an observation:
Design an observation protocol as a method for recording notes. Include descriptive and reflective notes (for examples: note about their relationships, hunches, and experiences.)
After your observation, you should write up your reflection as to what you observed and include you comments and a comparison as to what was happening, and what could or should have been happening in an inclusive multicultural environment and intercultural communication encounter.
You should write up part of your observation as a first person narrative. (l paragraph). . The rest of your observation (two to three paragraphs) should be reflective
Answer preview
Customers chose to sit in a location they are comfortable with. Few of them prefer to sit alone while others are open sharing tables. Interactions are deep or shallow depending on the familiarity of the parties involved. Family members have open, fun and engaging conversations while strangers or those who met for the first time had laid back conversations. Gestures and facial expressions proved to be a huge part of the conversations and even are used more in addressing workers. Individuals from the same race or language group tend to seat together, share tables and even spend time together. This open conversation changed when an individual from another race or language came in. This was however expected.
