My Experience of the Exchange^{[http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/infodok/sprogforum/Espr18/byram.html A record of my Intercultural Experience">2]}

 

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)

   

I reconsider my own culture as far as concerning university life. For example, in Padua  we give a lot of importance to meet ourselves on Wednesday. It’s cool because it’s like a sort of tradition; every week we go out and we meet always the same people. While, I recognized that Americans students don’t have a typical day in which they join together during the week.

 

• Moments in which I felt uncomfortable: (what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible).  To be sincere, I never felt uncomfortable.

   

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

   

 I felt comfortable when I spoke about University life in Padua. I had to say a lot of things about it! I don’t know why but I was very proud to describe our University lifestyle; especially the “spritz hour” on every Wednesday.

 

 

 

B. Knowledge

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

   

-American students live in the campus and all their scholastic and extra-scholastic activities take place within the college and the campus: as a consequence even parties will take place in the campus.

 

-American students have fraternities and sororities. Outside the US these college organisations are quite rare and in Italy they doesn’t exist at all. Discussing the issue with our partner it emerged  that the overall impression of Italian students on fraternities has been distorted by the great amount of movies and TV-movies which are broadcasted in Europe. These movies succeeded in conveying the idea that being part of such membership is the best way to enjoy college and that may help you gaining respect and getting privileges. Our partner pointed out that to have real fun at college, it is not necessary to join one of these fraternities and sororities, which are actually not appreciated by international students. They are perceived as “communities within a community” and students decide to join them otherwise they wouldn’t have good friends in the campus.  In Dickinson, there are more or less ten fraternities and according to the tradition, their names are made up by Greek letters. Moreover,often the members live together in a common house or in the dorms.  The members take part to their own specific activities and organize their own parties, which are sometimes opened to the other college students as well. Anyway, these parties don’t  seem to be so spectacular, amazing and funny as they appear to be in movies: the real profile and the real world of the fraternities are quite different.

 

 

 

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

   

The American University system is better organized than the Italian system. American students are more comfortable than Italians because they study in campus, so they don’t need to walk around the city to go to lesson.

 

• 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).

   

I learned that people are more interest to speak about simple topics, such as University life, fashion and so on, than exacting topics, such as political elections or immigration. During the Skype exchange, every time we greeted we asked ourselves the same questions, such as : “How are you?”; “Did you pass a good weekend?”. While, when we took leave from ourselves we always said: “Ok, now I have to go…see you! Bye bye!”

 

 

 

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.

   

I tried to explain to our peer  the difference between the South and the North of Italy. We talked about  “mafia”. I tried to explain her that this minority of people is the major cause of backwardness of the South. However, this region has to be consider for its artistic beauty and wonderful landscapes. So, I tried to convince her to see the South not just as the place of  “Mafiosi”.

 

• 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 asked for clarification to understand what fraternities were .I explained to my peer what a “spirtz” is and who “pendolari” are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience^{[http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/infodok/sprogforum/Espr18/byram.html A record of my Intercultural Experience">3]}

 

 

 

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:

-Daily routine; what students usually do during the day and in their spare time.

 

-What students do during the weekends.

 

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

For example American students at University.

 

 

 

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:

To be sincere, I haven’t realized this ability to change perspective; maybe because our peer was Spanish. While we were speaking, we realized that we look at American culture from the same perspective of a foreigner.

 

 

 

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 our Skype Exchange I always tried to speak in a moderate way. I mean, I didn’t speak about Italy as it was the best country of the world.

 

 

 

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 learned how College life is; how American University is organized and what fraternities are.

 

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

   

Firstly, I asked some simple questions such as : “How are you?” “What did you do today? Or, what did you do during the weekend?”; secondly, it depends on how the conversation develops.  

 

 

 

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:

As I said before, I tried to explain to our peer that the South of Italy shouldn’t be consider  just as a region of “mafiosi”. In fact, in this region there are a lot of companies which work very well and which have nothing to do with “mafia”. So, I tried to avoid the common prejudice of “mafiosi”, which foreigners always attribute to those people who live in the South.

 

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

   

It was interesting to compare the website of Dickinson college and the website of our University. In the American websites there were a lot of parts which focused on sports, accommodation, extra curricular activities and so on. While in the website of the University of Padua, you couldn’t find this kind of information. You should visit other websites, which are linked to the main website of the University. So, we realized that the American university system is better organized than the Italian system.

 

 

 

 

 

Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

 

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

 

 

 

• words, expressions I learned in English:

   

Words: tool (regarding computer science); podcast; social bookmarking; feed aggregator; authorship; plagiarism; blogosphere

 

Expressions: “As far as concerning…,I think that…”;  “Above all, I recognized that…”; “On the Internet”;

 

• improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation:

   

-I improve my pronunciation of these words: “scientific”; “culture”; “medieval”; “undoubtedly”.

 

-I improve my intonation of: “secretary”; “bye”; “interests”.

 

• improvements in my listening:

I think I became a little more quickly to understand English and American native speakers.

 

 

• changes in the way I speak Italian to non-native speakers:

   

With non-native speakers I spoke Italian very slowly, trying to articulate sounds and words in a very clear way.

 

·         words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project:

 

 bagel ( a ring-shaped bread roll); sorority ( a society of female university or college students); beer-pong (a table of ping pong where they play different games and when somebody loses they have to drink); dormitories (it is a building in a college or university where students live).  

 

 

 

• improvements in my reading doing the wiki project:

   

I became more quickly to read news or articles on the Internet.

 

• improvements in my writing doing the wiki project:

   

I tried to improve my academic style of writing, focusing my attention on my usual mistakes, such as verb tenses and the use of preposition.

 

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