Syllabus

Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary

Pacific Islands University

GMS 603 -- Cross Cultural Communications

Summer 2018 Semester

Professor: Brad Boydston, DMin

CONTACT INFORMATION
Brad Boydston, DMin
PO Box 1113
Laveen, AZ 85339-1113 USA
Email: 

• bboydston@piu.edu

Phone:

• 1-602-903-5085

To find me for a Google+ hangout use my gmail address -- boydston@gmail.com.

I'm also available to chat at various times throughout the week on Facebook or WhatsApp.

Arizona is in the Mountain Time Zone of the United States. This is GMT -7. For example, if it is 11 a.m., Friday on Guam, it is 6 p.m., Thursday in Arizona. If you wake me up in the middle of the night because you have failed to take time zone differences into account, you can expect divine retribution of the worst kind. ;-)

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Study of other peoples and their cultures and factors in sharing the Gospel across cultural barriers. (from the PIU catalog)

RATIONALE
In keeping with PIU's mission, this course will help students develop cross-cultural skills that will enable them to learn how to interact across cultures. We want them to become culturally fluid and equipped to develop relationships with people from other cultures, as well as work and minister with people from multiple cultures. This also involves become aware of the communication patterns in their native culture.

OBJECTIVES & OUTCOMES:

• The successful student will be able to explain in a paragraph or two basic communication theory and the challenges of communicating across cultures.
• The successful student will be able to define culture.
• The successful student will be able to articulate the patterns that go with hot and cold cultures.
• The successful student will be exposed to at least three of the main ideas about how cross cultural communication plays into working and ministering with people of different cultures.
• The successful student will have evaluated at least 10 cross-cultural communication experiences.

METHODS
This class involves a lot of video interaction with the teacher. At least 40% of the grade will hinge on regular participation in class video sessions. About 50% of the grade will be assigned for journaling work that will be emailed weekly to me. The journaling will involve reflections and outlines of the reading from the three textbooks, journal articles, and watching of the assigned videos. The journal entries will also provide the basis for the class discussion in the video meet-ups. A final paper which summarizes all learning or deals with a critical communication issue will be the final 10% of the grade.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS

• Lanier, Sarah A. Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot - And Cold - Climate Cultures. Haggerstown, MD : McDougal Books, 2000. 

• Livermore, David, Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World. Grand Rapids: Baker. 2009 

• Smith, Donald K., Creating Understanding: A Handbook for Christian Communication Across Cultural Landscapes. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992.

PLAGIARISM
Note the statement from page 35 of the 2016-2017 PIU catalog:

PACIFIC ISLANDS UNIVERSITY DOES NOT TOLERATE ANY FORM OF PLAGIARISM. Plagiarism is defined as using someone else’s words or ideas without using quotations marks or citing (identifying) the author, source, and page number of the source. Plagiarism is a form of cheating and is not allowed at PIU. When students use information from a speaker/teacher, books, articles, or the Internet, even if they put the information in their own words, students need to tell where the ideas came from. Plagiarizing any other person’s words or ideas carries serious consequences. In English classes, students will learn how to cite quotes and summarize information correctly. They are expected to use these skills in their writing assignments for all classes. Students who willingly allow other students to copy their work are also guilty of plagiarism because they aided in the process. The following steps will be taken when complete or a significant portion of plagiarism is detected in a student’s work (partial plagiarism is left up to the discretion of the teacher). 

Additional disciple steps are outlined on page 36 of the catalog.