By: Jasmine Morrow Staffwriter
The Community Lecture Series is an event that happens every month on Western’s campus where many of Western’s professors get the opportunity to lecture and discuss issues that they think need to be brought to the attention of Western students.
This month, Dr. Robert Troyer presented his lecture entitled, “Global Learning: Bring the World to WOU Students.” Troyer is an associate professor of linguistics and the academic advisor for international students at Western. In his lecture, Troyer discussed why diversity is so important to have on campus and in one’s life.
With diversity, everyone can grow and learn from one another. Interaction can be helpful to understanding different cultures, by communicating with different students and faculty, taking multiple types of coursework, studying abroad, joining clubs and going to events on campus. Everyone comes from different backgrounds, different countries and speaks different languages. Comprehending different languages can be difficult, because of everyone’s individual dialects. During the presentation, Troyer had the group do a listening practice, where he played a Hong Kong woman speaking English. With that exercise, the audience was able to hear the differences between an American accent and the woman’s accent.
Listening to different accents can help one become more confident with listening and comprehending other people’s ways of pronouncing words. Sometimes there is a subconscious stereotype with accents and it can be harder for the participating speakers and listeners. Familiarity leads to an increased comprehension. It’s a two-way street, it all depends on the attitude of the two people listening and speaking.
Understanding language diversity can be extremely helpful for future knowledge, because the world population is growing, and everyone has to learn to live with each other. Within the Global Community, understanding can go a lot more smoothly if those who live in it strive to truly understand one another.
Troyer wanted people to get an idea of diversity at Western and help the students understand diversity. Diversity is extremely important to him because his family is bilingual and multiethnic. His research is on different minorities and languages that are in multilingual situations.
Learning diversity is all about seeing different perspectives. People in different cultures are going to do things differently than what one is used to seeing, and accepting that is crucial. Troyer had the group he was presenting to read an article titled, “Seek Out Strangers” by Dan Everett. In the article, Everett explained how it’s difficult for someone to learn something from the people around them – people who are culturally the same as them. They have to go out and learn from different cultures and accept diversity.
Contact the author at jmorrow16@wou.edu
