Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Individualism vs collectivism.
The uncertainty avoidance: It expresses the degree to which the members of a society feel
uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.
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Before watching
1. Read the following plot of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) and fill in the gaps with the words below:
Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos) is a 30 years old girl from a 1.......................... Greek family, and
works as waitress in her family's restaurant, Dancing Zorba's, in Chicago. At thirty, she is the only
girl in her family, deemed as a “failure” for not getting married by the right age. Her family 2.
….................... her to "marry a Greek, make Greek babies, and feed everyone until the day she
dies".
But Toula is 3.…....................... in life, she often finds herself very lonely in her big Greek family.
She wants to join computer classes for making herself a better professional and 4…........................
her waitress job. Her mother convinces her father Gus (Michael Constantine) to let her take some
computer classes at college. She changes herself by replacing thick glasses with contact lenses,
wears her hair curly, and begins to use makeup.
She, her mother, and her aunt Voula (Andrea Martin), then, 5…..................... her father to allow
her to work at her aunt's travel agency. Toula feels much better in her new job. One day she
notices Ian (John Corbett) hanging around looking at her through the window. They finally
6.......................... themselves and begin dating.
Toula keeps the relationship secret from her family until some weeks later when his father finds
out. His father gets wild knowing that his daughter is dating with a non-Greek boy and starts
searching a suitable “Greek”groom for her.
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2. After reading the text, can you guess and tick the cultural dimensions the film may talk about?
Individualist societies are those in which the "A society is called masculine when emotional
interests of the individual prevail over the interests gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed
of the group. to be assertive, tough, and focused on material
Collectivist societies are those in which the interests success, whereas women are supposed to be more
of the group prevail over the interests of the modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of
individual life.
A society is called feminine when emotional gender
roles overlap: both men and women are supposed
to be modest, tender, and concerned with the
quality of life"
Power distance is about the way in which people in Proxemics is concerned with the human perception
different societies handle inequality. It "can [...] be and use of space and distance. It makes a distinction
defined as the extent to which the less powerful between public and private space, and identifies the
members of institutions and organizations within a distance zones in human interaction.
country expect and accept that power is distributed
unequally
Affectivity Traditionalism:
Cultures differ in the degree to which their members Traditionalism refers to the persistence of
show or hide their emotions. Members of affective traditional value systems in a society despite
cultures tend to display their emotions fairly openly; economic and political changes (under the influence
in neutral cultures, people tend not to disclose their of modernization).
emotions, but control and smother them, in this
way hiding what they are feeling or thinking.
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While watching
Your teacher will tell you which of the following role you have to follow while watching the film!
1) The Designer.
4) The Questioner.
6) The Checker.
Prepare everything you need for watching and developing your role! (see role photocopies)
After watching
Prepare everything you need to develop your role in the group discussion! (see role photocopies)
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Activity evaluation!
3) Value your own work in this activity! What grade do you think you deserve? Why?
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4) Value your team mates’ work in this activity! What grade do you think they deserve? Why?
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Name:
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Name:
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5) What did you most like of this activity?
6) What do you think could be improved in this activity? How should teachers improve it?