My Experience of the Exchange

 

 

 

 

 Taken from:http://www.flickr.com/photos/bambino333/368289174/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Description of my feelings, knowledge and actions during the exchange 

 

 

 

 

A. Feelings

 

Ways in which my curiosity and interest were aroused (examples that made me re-consider my own culture)

Firstly, during my exchanges I realized that many Americans consider Italians as “mafiosi” or things like that. Personally, I was not offended, especially because I think this is another stereotype mainly conveyed  by the great part of movies about Italy and Italians; I had the great pleasure to show to my partners both how much different Italians are from what they are used to see and how many people devoted their lives to fighting mafia and “raccomandazioni” almost every day. Secondly, one of the most interesting topics our exchange dealt with was immigration, a crucial issue here in Italy. It was really amazing to realize how much “ordinary” this phenomenon is in the US: the great part of our American peers maintains that immigration belongs to their life, since their origins are deeply rooted in migration processes. Furthermore, I was interested in understanding the real meaning of the so-called “melting pot”: I mean, I don’t know if it’s something concrete or just an ideal they are still trying to pursue. I must admit that reflecting on this and reading through the forum I felt myself a little bit narrow-minded: I sometimes tend to be afraid of “the diverse” and to generalize instead of considering other cultural backgrounds as a great resource for everyone of us.

 

 

Moments in which I felt uncomfortable: (what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible) 

There was nothing that made me feel upset or even just not completely at ease: I was very lucky, since the tools I exploited always worked (Skype- sometimes I just lost my connection- forums and the Wiki page). The only thing I didn’t appreciate was the fact of creating conferences during the exchanges… at times it was very hard to take the floor!

 

 

Moments when I felt comfortable:(what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible)

I really enjoyed working at our final project: it's been a pleasure to see our wiki page completely edited. At the beginning, we were all quite worried about this “on-line paper”: honestly, I had never heard about something like this before. Moreover, working in group is not always a child’s play! After all, we all worked together passionately setting up a reliable “cultural” page (I hope!!).

 

 

 

B. Knowledge

 

The most important things I learnt about family life and/or life at school.

As far as the college life is concerned, we talked just a little about it, just during the first exchange (the one I had with Anne…probably the best one: we were only in two and she was really nice and willing to learn more and more!). The “evidences” showed that Italians are a little more closed to their families, they tend to be “mammoni”, while the Americans are more independent even because they move for other countries when they’re only nineteen to start their college life. Once again I think these are only stereotypes, or better, generalizations!

 

 

The most important things I have learnt about the country, the nation, the state of the target language.

Thanks to this project I had the opportunity to go into detail about American candidates and their own political platforms for the presidential elections. I think it has been the topic we, as a group, discussed more times. Obviously, the main event was the candidacy of a black man and of a woman; unfortunately, I realized that even in the US, which is a country generally renowned for its progress, there’s still no place for women. Actually, I think women can do everything better: “we” are mothers, workers, and  managers of the family life, while men are…just men!  

We discussed also terrorism: here in Italy this phenomenon is often related to all the bloody actions made by some active groups which belong to the extreme left wing, while in the US it seems to be related only to Muslims...especially after the 9/11.

 

 

What I have learnt about customs and conventions of talking with people (topics which interest them, topics to avoid, how to greet people and take leave from them).

What I learned from this experience is that everyone should be sensitive to other people’s needs or feelings. I mean, there’s nothing you can’t talk about, even the most ticklish issue can be discussed, it always depends on the way you say or ask something. Just to give an example I remember a thing that happened when doing my last exchange: a Federico’s joke made me laugh; at the same time our American peer was talking into Italian…well.. she asked me if we were laughing of her pronunciation. I think I hurt her in that very instant.

 

 

 

C. Actions

 

Incidents or problems which I resolved by explaining different cultures to people, helping them see the points of view of different cultures and how misunderstandings can happen.

A significant problem I had was during the third exchange when we were supposed to talk about the Italian “years of leads”  and the feminist movement during the 70’s. I must be honest: I felt that my American peer, Kristen, was not so much interested in discussing these issues. Anyway, to not give a bad impression I did some searches surfing the net…I did my best trying to find out a proper answer to any possible question. Well, even if we never argued about these issues now I can say that I perfectly know the whole story of Aldo Moro and of his kidnapping, a central episode in the history of our country.

 

 

Examples of times when I have had to ask questions and work out my own answers (from ask for clarification to understanding cultural customs and beliefs)

I had some difficulties when my peer asked me to explain our election system: I had to look up a lot of legal terms on the dictionary!That's probably the main reason why I decided to vote the wiki page number 15!

 

 

 

 

A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience

 

 

 Taken from:http://www.flickr.com/photos/montanaraven/340049689/

 

 

 

A. Interest in other people's way of life

 

I am interested in other people's experience of daily life, particularly those things not usually presented to outsiders through the media. Example:

I’m particularly interested in common people’s daily life (their food habits, their political opinions, the things they do not accept, the way they dress, and so on). Obviously, I do believe that a direct contact with another culture is the best way to understand and interpret people’s perspectives (I really love surveys of every kind!!), but we must admit that also movies play a central role in determining what should be interesting; I mean, stereotypes conveyed by movies are not necessarily true but they certainly give a general idea of how a society is.

 

 

I am also interested in the daily experience of a variety of social groups within a society and not only the dominant culture. Example:

An Italian peer, Martina, told me that according to her American partner even in the US feelings of racism are not declining: discrimination is still there, especially against immigrants coming from specific areas of the world. It’s exactly the same thing that happens here in Italy: for example, a native Italian tends to not look down on a person coming from the US, while people coming from the poorest countries are the favorite (and the easiest) targets for criticism.

 

 

B. Ability to change perspective

 

I have realised that I can understand other cultures by seeing things from a different point of view and by looking at my culture from their perspective. Example:

I think we are all at the beginning of this very long process: to change perspectives by looking at other cultures or reconsider your own is not so simple. I do believe that both ideas and beliefs are deeply rooted into people’s minds, therefore it’s very hard to root out them or even just to change them. Anyway, just the fact of being aware that you’re not always right and that your point of view is not necessarily the only one, it’s a first significant change.

 

 

C. Ability to cope with communicating in a different language with a different culture

 

I am able to cope with a range of reactions people from different cultures may have to the way I express myself and what I say. Example:

During the exchange I experienced the difficulty of interacting with another culture so with a person who speaks another language and has a different background. In particular, I remember, when talking about a specific subject, how much difficult was to choose proper words to convey the exact meaning of what I was saying. I do believe that this was probably due to the means of communication we used: if you’re engaged in a face-to-face communication is much more simple because you can rely on your partner’s expressions,  you can read his/her lips while he/she’s talking and you can immediately realize if he/she has understood what you’re trying to say. Communicating via Internet involves a great effort on the part of both interlocutors and the only way to learn something is to ask your peer for corrections. (this is what I did all the time….poor Americans!!)

 

 

 

D. Knowledge about another country and culture

 

I know some important facts about the other culture and about the country, state and people that I did not know before. Example:

I don't want to seem too superficial but I must admit that what really struck my attention was the fact that in the US there are no property taxes...this made me wonder why here in Italy we are still so stupid!! I mean, I don't understand why we must pay taxes for something we bought with our own money!!(i.e house)

Switching to something more thoughtful, we spent long time talking about stereotypes and differences between the north and the south both in Italy and in the US (it was the topic of our wiki). Once again Kristen was not so helpful, since she doesn't feel any difference. Anyway, searching the net I realized that general ideas about people belonging to a specific area of a country are almost the same: here, as well as in the US, people from the north are conceived as more active, independent but even cold and distant, while people of the south are generally seen as more friendly, outgoing and sunny. (if you want to know more....click on our wiki!). I think that even my peers’ wiki pages are very useful to learn more and helped me to increase my awareness of particular realities I didn’t completely know before. (The “numbers” of death penalty page really shocked me.)

 

 

 

I know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain a conversation. Example:

To tell the truth, I don’t know if I’m able or not to maintain a conversation but I’m sure that I did my best, especially because I always tried to show to my peer both that I was truly interested in our debates and that this was not just a task I was forced to accomplish. (I felt that it was not always the same for some of my American peers; I’m sorry to say these things but sometimes I felt that we, Italians, were more involved in this cultural experience).

 

 

 

E. Knowledge about intercultural communication

 

I know how to resolve misunderstandings which arise from people's lack of awareness of the view point of another culture. Example of misunderstanding and solution:

Meditating on my experience I cannot think of any misunderstanding which have occurred during the exchanges. There were some problems only when the conversation switched into Italian but it was not my peer’s fault: sometimes I talked too quick instead of articulating words clearly. 

 

 

I know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. Example:

This time I had no problems!!Last semester we exploited so many tools that now to do a search is a piece of cake! I used google advanced search, bloglines, del.icio.us, facebook, cultura, and obviously our forum!

 

 

 

 

Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

 

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

 

words, expressions I learned in English: official commericials; 'I feel he's a lot like him'; election process; keep up the reading;

 

improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation: category; interesting; adjective;

 

improvements in my listening:The more you listen the more you understand…this is definitely true! I must say that I really prefer American English than the British one: sometimes Americans are a little more understandable but I love their incomparable pronunciation!  (i.e Manhattan).

changes in the way I speak Italian to non-native speakers: I’ve tried to make my interlocutor fell at ease when speaking in Italian and I always used very simple words (I think they did the same with me). I made some suggestions for improving her pronunciation and when something was not clear I tried to explain it in English.

 

words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project: withdrawal;separate municipality;process of privatization of government's services; despotic; self-governing;  private ownership; to work in concert.

 

improvements in my reading doing the wiki project: Selecting material for the wiki was a very hard process. As we said during the first semester, on the Web you can find almost everything…that’s the main reason why you should use proper criteria to single out reliable materials. This was definitely a good exercise to improve my abilities.

 

improvements in my writing doing the wiki project: I made great efforts to re-write facts and opinions I found out on the Web. What’s more I tried to respect the so-called “intellectual honesty” making suitable quotations, especially when I was not able to express the exact meaning of a sentence using my own words.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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