Show “Ted Lasso” Teaches the Importance of Cross-Cultural Competence in the Language Classroom and Intercultural Communication
Disclaimer - Spoilers
Introduction:
The new modern technological world offers anyone who is self-motivated a new unique opportunity to immerse themselves in any language and any culture that they want. As well as the freedom to create and present themselves to the internet in whatever way they desire, which may in fact differ from their real life-offline persona. This allows people to explore their own personalities, interests, and express themselves with the safety curtain of a computer screen and keyboard. The need and want to learn English has always been there. Accessible information to teach yourself outside of the classroom is now at our fingertips on social media, video streaming websites, video game platforms, music streaming, podcasts, and all sorts of different apps. While directed instruction has been and will continue to be crucial to TEFL, learning the culture behind English does not need explicit instruction. Many people have self-taught English to an extent by watching famous series like “Friends” and “How I Met Your Mother”. One can learn so much about a language and culture from the comfortable practice of binge watching their favorite shows in their pajamas on the couch. This paper will dive into the cultural aspects of TEFL via the 2020 series “Ted Lasso”.
“Ted Lasso” is all about cross-cultural interactions between a Kansas born American Football Coach living and working as a Soccer (Football) Manager in London, England. Ted navigates the challenges of coaching a different sport in a foreign country, cultural clashes, and misunderstandings. The show sheds light on the complexities of intercultural communication even when the first language of both parties is English. Proving the importance of teaching cultural competence in language classes. As well as empathy for effective cross-cultural communication in this international world. “Ted Lasso” teaches the importance of cultural sensitivity in language teaching and learning in an inspiring way. Ted is also an inspiration to coaches and teachers alike to enable a welcoming and inclusive environment that is culturally responsive for their students.
By watching “Ted Lasso” one can teach themselves about American and British English, American and British culture, and emphasize the differences and similarities between the two. As well as learn strategies from Ted on how to create a warm, welcoming, comfortable, and uplifting environment to teach students to be culturally competent and communicate effectively in multilingual environments. Ted is not just a soccer coach, but also a funny, helpful, resourceful, positive, friendly, fatherly, respectful teacher that everyone can learn from.
Cross-cultural competence:
Starting with the first episode of the series, Ted and his assistant coach travel from Kansas to London on a red eye flight to embark on a new journey. In the first scene they meet their new boss, Rebecca Welton. Ted quickly introduces himself as the new “Coach” and his assistant coach, “Coach Beard”. As their conversation continues, Ted expresses his sleepiness from the red eye last night and he requests for a drink with some caffeine. Like any American obsessed with Starbucks, he lists fun name coffee drinks saying as long as he can’t taste the coffee, it’s good. He is confronted with his first two culture shocks and cross-cultural language differences when Rebecca asks him how he takes his tea and calls him the “Club Manager”, not the “Team’s Coach”. He then proceeds into his first press conference as the new Club Manager and chokes on his first sip of bubbly water because it is not still like it would be in the US. A warm welcome to England for Ted.
Ted's remarks at his very first press conference are being watched by the public calling him a “twat”, the journalists correcting his basic and embarrassing mistakes about the sport, and his new nervous club that is not so confident in their new Manager. Journalists began shouting at Ted to go back to America.
“No, I have never coached the sport that you folks call football at any level. Heck, you could fill two Internets with what I don’t know about football. But I’ll tell you what I do know. I know that AFC Richmond, like any team I’ve ever coached, is gonna go out there and give you everything they got for all four quarters… They’re gonna give you everything they got for two halves. Win or lose… Right y’all do ties here. Sorry, that’s gonna take some getting used to for me. Cause back where I’m from, you try to end a game in a tie, well that might as well be the first sign of the apocalypse.” (Ted Lasso)
In just the first fifteen minutes of the first episode and what feels like Ted’s first fifteen minutes in a new country and new job we are faced with a multitude of examples of cross-cultural communication and confusion. From Ted’s accent, word choice, gestures, facial expressions, and behavior he is giving one hundred percent born and raised American boy. According to some, part of being American is also being unaware of other cultures.
CLIL:
This series incorporates Content and Language Integrated Learning methods to teach cultural competence via coaching soccer. Ted creates a dynamic learning environment where the players whose first language may not be English as well as native speakers learn language skills in English as well as other languages, gain a deeper appreciation for their different cultures, and become better soccer players. Through the CLIL based approach Ted is teaching the teammates and all of the viewers at home with authentic, content-rich cultural understanding.
Ted encourages the team to embrace their differences, styles, strategies, methods, and perspectives from players that are from different cultures or maybe just a different generation. The immersive experience of watching the show gives the viewer the opportunity to learn cross-cultural competence by learning from Ted the cultural influences on the game and the team.
Hall’s Iceberg:
When we look at Hall’s Iceberg Model of Culture, we are reminded that the surface level of culture, what we see is such a small part of the culture. People’s behaviors and customs are only the tip of the iceberg. The deep culture that we cannot see is one’s attitude and beliefs and their core values. All these communication debacles Ted faces in the beginning of Season 1 Episode 1 are just scratching at the surface of Hall’s iceberg model. Viewers can see that all these English journalists, players, and fans are upset with Ted’s arrival, but may not understand the deeper reason why football is so incredibly important to these characters.
The team setting is mixed with most of the players from England, and some international players from Canada, Nigeria, Wales, Ireland, Netherlands, and France with the Manager and assistant coach from the United States. All of these players are communicating in English throughout the show, emphasizing English as the Lingua Franca.
Bennett’s Model:
The show discusses several cultural taboos. Mental health and all things paired with the struggles someone has with mental health; Ted has anxiety attacks in several episodes due to personal and professional reasons. He gets the team a therapist and the players as well as Ted learn healthy ways to deal with their issues. The show talks about sexuality and divorce, makes puns about politics and many more difficult to talk about topics. This is important for a show to bring a voice to these issues and pertinent to this essay because the topics that may be considered taboo vary from culture to culture. In a show like Ted Lasso, we are immersed in an English as the Lingua Franca scenario with people from all around the world having cross-cultural conversations in every kind of situation. As you learn a language or move to a place where that language is spoken, you may find yourself in the middle of a conversation about a topic that once was something unspeakable to you before.
Throughout this series we continue to see the main character Ted move up and down Bennett’s Scale or Bennett’s Model of Intercultural Sensitivity as he balances the new culture of this foreign country, new culture of a new career, and new culture within the club and all the players' different backgrounds. We also see Ted as the Club Manager teach his players how to move up and down this scale, to accept each other for their cultural differences and have empathy and understanding towards someone even when they come from a different background than oneself.
Bennett believed that as one becomes more interculturally competent, the quality of their experience would improve. This was proven to be true as Ted becomes more interculturally competent in London about the country and the sport of which before he was totally oblivious. He not only becomes a better coach and person, but the club becomes more skillful, plays more cohesively and also becomes more culturally competent towards each other.
In regard to cultural competence, “Ted Lasso” proves Bennett’s beliefs to be true that a person or community can move up and down this scale in relation to different aspects of cultural competence. For example, Ted's disdain of tea throughout the show never ends. He stays in the state of denial of cultural difference in regard to tea for all three seasons. We see the stage of defense as the community defends football and England from Ted in the first episode, However, over time they come to love Ted and even his worst supporter, Trent from the Independent, believes in Ted and his methods.
In the episode “La Locker Room Aux Folles” in season 3, there is one of the best examples of minimization and acceptance of a team member who is gay. Colin has been in the closet his whole life. His team captain Isaac finds out that he is gay and is feeling hurt that Colin never told him strains their relationship. At a game, a fan screams “faggot” at the players unrelated to their sexual preference, and Isaac, the team captain, loses it attacking the fan in the stands.
In the locker room during halftime Ted confronts Isaac about his behavior and the team is upset with Isaac for his reaction (denial). He should have ignored the commentary; it is nothing they haven't heard before (minimization). The team then starts to believe that Isaac is gay. It seems most of the players are surprised, but the French player thinks that is totally normal because of statistics (and French culture). Player Obisanya then states to his teammates that they don’t need to discuss Isaac’s sexuality anymore, they just need to support him (minimization). Which is when Colin decided to speak up and come out to his teammates. Dani Rojas follows up with “Yes amigo. You’re gay, big whoop. But we don’t care. Right guys?” (minimization). Until Ted shares an uplifting speech about how he and the team do in fact care (acceptance). And Ted instead of giving the usual half time pep talk he changes the “curriculum” and teaches the team about the importance of supporting, accepting, and having empathy for your friends. This episode is ended with adaptation when Isaac finally restores his friendship with Colin and integration when the whole team regardless of their cultural backgrounds and differences are able to support each other.
Claire Kramsch:
Kramsch is a linguist who believes that it is impossible to separate culture from language. Language learners must develop intercultural communicative competence in order to navigate effectively in diverse cultural contexts. “Ted Lasso” gives us all of these diverse cultural contexts. Kramsch also believes in this area she coined the “Third Space” which refers to a mental area where teachers and learners can explore, question, and construct their own meanings and identities.
Ted Lasso is fictional, but similarly to Kramsch he teaches the players that it is impossible to communicate effectively with people without understanding or having empathy towards their culture and their beliefs. Ted believes to build rapport with everyone in his circle and works really hard to do so. All with a focus on cultural collaboration. No matter the situation, Ted always finds common ground with others. For example, at a meal with a journalist who was writing hurtful things about Ted, Trent from the Independent, they went to a restaurant and the owner was excited to see a “celebrity” and make him a friend. Ted told the chef to make what he would make for his family even though he knew his American taste palette would not be able to handle the spice.
If Ted were to watch the videos of Kramsch’s interviews he likely would have a deeper understanding of what he really is doing to break down these cultural and linguistic divides between the teammates, the public, and the viewers. Kramsch’s question was “do we teach culture through language?” Ted would argue that you teach culture through every waking moment. And it would be impossible to separate culture from any communicative interaction. Therefore, similarly to Kramsch, Ted believes that you cannot separate the two.
Kramsch says that if you are going to use the internet to learn a language you must make sure that you are using authentic and meaningful content. She advocates for using digital tools and online resources. “Ted Lasso” is a perfect example of this. When watching the show, viewers are exposed to real life situations, conversations, implications and language usage. Viewers learn about cultural references that they may have never been exposed to otherwise without actually being immersed in the physical place. And because the show is filled with diverse characters and story lines, the viewers are given an immersive language experience. We can watch this show from the comfort of our homes. Viewers do not need to buy a flight to London or to Kansas to be exposed to these two very different cultures. This show has culturally rich content and promotes linguistic and cultural understanding.
Julien S. Bourelle:
In Julien’s Ted Talk he talks about when you move to a new country you can deal with the new culture in one of three ways; confront, complain, or conform. He notes from his own personal experience as a Canadian living in Norway that he has adapted many Norwegian behaviors that may have seemed unnatural to him when he had just moved there, but now are second nature. We can see how Ted Lasso goes through these same steps as we watch him through his cultural changes living abroad.
Confront: you believe your behaviors are the right behaviors. We see this in the initial episodes of “Ted Lasso”, when Ted really is not adjusting much to this new English culture. For example, he has his ticks that he cannot change. His disdain for tea, he loves peanut butter and leaves it open on the counter. There really are no serious scenes where Ted shows that he is not changing because Ted is constantly trying to bridge the gap between the two cultures.
Julien says that when you complain, you will isolate yourself. Ted never complains. People walk by him on the street and chant at the games calling him rude names. People begin to think that maybe Ted doesn’t know what these English names mean until we learn that Ted just believes in being the bigger person, that he does not want to engage in these negative interactions of people that do not like him because of cultural differences. That he is adapting and soon they will too.
Finally, Julien says that when you conform to the society, then you can truly benefit from the diversity. We can see that Ted Lasso is striving with his team in the third season. It seems that he has everything under control. The team has a great record, and wonderful relationships with each other and it is all because Ted has taught everyone cross-cultural communication and understanding.
More examples of Ted teaching Cultural Competence:
There is an episode titled “Biscuits”. Ted tries to build rapport with every character no matter their background or walk of life. This includes his professional and personal relationship with his boss Rebecca. His second day working for the club, he began to bake Rebecca biscuits in an attempt to connect with her better. This symbol is referenced again later in a press conference when a journalist asks him about differences between American and British coaching styles. In Ted’s naturally humorous ways, he compares American biscuits to British cookies. Ted naturally is able to use humor to relate to others and he reminds viewers of some small cultural differences in order to bridge the cultural differences between him and his boss, the journalists, the public in London, as well as viewers watching the show at home.
As a coach, Ted constantly is fostering a united team. There are language barriers as some of the players are international and there may be cultural misunderstandings between them. Ted always uses different strategies to have successful cross-cultural communication with his teammates. He learns basic phrases in different languages like Spanish and Dutch. He shows interest in their backgrounds and cultures. The team supports Obisanya, the player from Nigeria when their team is sponsored by a corrupt corporation that is causing a lot of harm in Nigeria time and time again. Obisanya opens an authentic Nigerian restaurant and the whole team including Rebecca is very supportive of him. When the restaurant is later attacked and ruined by racists, the team supports him again in rebuilding.
Ted encourages the teammates to have open and respectful conversations with each other in order to better understand each other and their viewpoints. He fosters a team that works together and can appreciate each other’s differences. Regardless of their first language, religious beliefs, color of their skin, gender, sexuality, generation, or mental health.
Conclusion:
The show “Ted Lasso” emphasizes cross-cultural competence and communication in order to work together to make a better team or a better world. Ted’s teachings to his team serve as teaching to all of the viewers on how to be better people, or better teachers and how to teach cultural competence in our classrooms. He reminds us of how to be culturally sensitive, empathetic, and how to have effective communication. As well as how to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for our students. So, like Kramsch says, let’s use the internet as the tool that it is to teach ourselves about language and culture.
Educators can help their students in the same way Ted Lasso helped his team and everyone in his life. Ted also helped everyone who watched the show. He helps us to navigate our day-to-day difficulties, intercultural communication, and language acquisition. He also teaches people about the difficulties of living in another country and leaving your family behind. Regardless of if you had something worthy of running away from or not.
In conclusion, Ted teaches educators how to be better teachers and how to teach cultural competence in their classrooms. Ted embodies empathy, open-mindedness, and curiosity about his students. From watching this show, we can learn the importance of incorporating all of our student’s cultures into our classroom, teaching, and recognize that it is impossible to separate culture from language. By using the lessons Ted has taught us, we can promote intercultural understanding and prepare our students to thrive in an interconnected world. We can continue to help our language students become global citizens that can effectively communicate in the lingua franca all around the world with an open mind and open heart to people who may be different from themselves.
Bibliography:
Delaney, M. (Director). (2020). Ted Lasso Pilot [Series]. Apple TV.
What is CLIL? (n.d.). Retrieved from Onestopenglish website: https://www.onestopenglish.com/clil/what-is-clil/501038.article
Beyond Culture (1976) by Edward T. Hall
Organizing Engagement. (2019, November 1). Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Retrieved from Organizing Engagement website: https://organizingengagement.org/models/developmental-model-of-intercultural-sensitivity/
Kramsch, C. (n.d.). An Interview with Claire Kramsch. Retrieved May 29, 2023, from www.youtube.com website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI6YwSOASQE
Youtube. (n.d.). Claire Kramsch Using the Internet to teach culture. Retrieved May 29, 2023, from www.youtube-nocookie.com website: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/J1NKFIp0Utc?playlist=J1NKFIp0Utc&autoplay=1&iv_load_policy=3&loop=1&modestbranding=1&start=
TEdx Talks. (2015). How Culture Drives Behaviours | Julien S. Bourrelle | TEDxTrondheim [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Yy6poJ2zs
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