TEACHING CROSS-CULTURAL COUNSELING TO TRAINEE COUNSELORS IS A WASTE OF TIME

Before we discuss the opinion about "Teaching Cross-cultural Counseling to trainee counselors is a waste of time. Instead, we should focus on equipping them with the skills and competencies for being good counselors” lets us define what is mean by cross-cultural training. The cross-cultural training generally can be defined as “any intervention aimed at increasing an individual’s capability to cope with and work in foreign environment” (Tung, 1981, in Zakaria, 2000). Hence, cross-cultural training involves all the methods like lectures, simulation etc. used to make the person familiar with a different culture. The term cross-cultural training hence is broad enough to include differences in areas like language abilities, business etiquettes, beliefs and values, social system, negotiating styles etc. of any culture.

According to the above opinion, it states that "Teaching Cross-cultural Counseling to trainee counselors is a waste of time”. The writer has his own stand when he gives a statement like this. The writer feels that all the trainee counselors are born and grew up in their own country, so they already know about the other culture background, how to interact with them, their behavior, their belief and many more. So if cross-cultural subject is make as compulsory, it’s like wasting of time to the trainee counselor because it looks like we re-teach them again about something that they have already know before this. Besides that, normally many of trainee counselors will work in their own country when they finished their studies in the future. Hence, teaching cross-cultural counseling to them is waste of time.

Moreover, normally client will more prefer to see the counselor from the same culture like them. This is because; they feel if the counselor’s culture is same like them, it is easier to the counselor to understand and communicate about their problem because the counselor is more empathy about their feeling, values, belief etc. Besides that, the client also feels more comfortable to talk with the counselor with the same culture compare to the different culture. Furthermore, their level of trust also will increase and this situation is good because it’s allowing the client to talk more and share everything with the counselor. So, it is not important to teach cross-cultural subject to them because the clients are more intelligent in choosing with whom they want to share their problem. In the study that examined intragroup differences, Jackson and Kirshner found a significant relationship between preference for counselor race and racial self-designation students who identified them self as Afro-American or Black will more likely to prefer a same race counselor. Hence, it showed that teaching cross-cultural to trainee counselors is not important but the more important things is how they use their skills and competencies to help their clients.

From the other side, I’m disagree with the writer statement because although the trainee counselor are born and grew up in this country, but not all of them are interact with people with different cultures such as Chinese, Indian, Malay and Orang Asli. Sometimes, they also did not know well about their own culture, so teaching cross-cultural to trainee counselor is not waste of time. Many benefit they will get after they finished cross-cultural courses, they will feel more confident to counsel client not only the different cultures but also the client with same culture. Neil Payne graduated MA in Middle Eastern Studies at London's prestigious SOAS University, said that through cross cultural training, people are exposed to facts and information about their own cultures, preconceptions, mentalities and worldviews that they may otherwise not have contemplated. Cross cultural training helps people learn more about themselves through learning about others.

Besides that, not all the client will feel comfortable or more prefer to see the counselors that have same culture with them. This is because, if the counselors did not know how to interact with them and did not know well about their own and other cultures, the client will not feel comfortable and will not come again to see the counselor. Unfortunately, if the counselors have a strong skills in counseling and plus extra skill of cross-cultural counseling they will successes in their job and the entire client will feel comfortable and more prefer to see them no matter who they are and what culture they are come from. Besides that, as a counselor they have to think further, although they work in their country they have to remember that their client are comes from difference culture background so they have to prepare themselves with skills in cross-cultural counseling.

In conclusion, cross-cultural counseling skills are important to trainee counselors in order to understand their own and others cultures to make sure their job can run smoothly. But it is depends on the situation whether this course is essential to teach to the trainee counselors or not. Hence, management of the universities, colleges and other institutions that offer guidance and counseling programme have to play their roles to decides whether cross-cultural counseling subject is appropriate to include in their syllabus or not.


References:

George Morten and Donald R. Atkinson, (1983), Minority Identity Development and Preference for Counselor Race, Howard University

Neelu Rohmetra, Expatriation: The cross-cultural Issues and Design of Training for Coping, Retrieved July 29, 2009. http://stdwww.iimahd.ernet.in/~sandeepk/Crosscultural.pdf

Neil Payne, (2004, November 26). The 10 Benefits of Cross Cultural Training. Retrieved July 29, 2009. http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/11-26-2004-62160.asp


Created by : Wan Nor Masithah Bt. Mior Abdul Aziz 0720436