My Experience of the Exchange

 

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)

As far as my personal experience is concerned, there isn’t a particular answer to this question; in fact, I have been pretty curious since the very beginning of this exchange. Unfortunately, I could take part in the exchange nearly a month later than my peers (I was supposed to participate in the Padova-Poznan exchange) and, when I chatted with my mates – those who had already been skyping with the Dickinson students – about their exchange, they were so enthusiastic that I wished to have the same opportunity. Anyway, one of the things that particularly aroused my interest was learning about American college life. As a university student, I wondered how my life would be if now I were studying in the U.S.!

 

 

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

The first time I spoke with Chiara, my American colleague, I was a bit embarrassed and shy; I was afraid of not understanding her or just making a bad impression on her. Anyway, I believe it’s quite normal when you meet a person for the first time and you have to speak with her about complex issues such as politics! Perhaps, I sometimes felt a bit uncomfortable when I had difficulties in speaking in English because I lacked the vocabulary. Luckily, Chiara knows Italian very well so she always managed to help me!

 

 

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

Most of the time I felt totally comfortable. Chiara was so nice and patient (above all when we had technical audio problems, and this happened quite often to tell the truth!). She is a very tolerant and "democratic" person; that's why I completely felt at ease with her very soon!

 

 

B. Knowledge

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

I was particularly struck by American lifestyle in colleges.  Before all I knew about this topic was based on American TV series, but this exchange made me realize that media often depict a distorted reality, or just the best side of the medal! Campus life is not always a holiday!

 

 

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

Now I’m more informed about U.S. society in general. Before I completely ignored the issue of universal health care, nor did I know about the difference between popular and electoral vote, for example.

 

 

• 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).

In my opinion, Americans are very interested in issues that are particularly relevant to their society (and modern societies in general), for example politics and elections, immigration, women’s rights, abortion, and death penalty. I don’t really know if there are topics which should be avoided with them, but personally I assume there aren’t (at least with young people). As for the way of greeting people, in my group, we use very common expressions, such as ‘Hi’, ‘How are you?’, ‘Come va?', ‘ Tutto bene?’. Since Chiara's lesson ended before ours, it was always her who took leave from us by saying “Grazie! Buona giornata! Ci sentiamo!”.

 

 

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 didn’t have such problems with Chiara. She perfectly understood our "Italian point of view", above all when we spoke about the last general elections and expressed our thoughts about Italian politicians!

 

 

• 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 cannot remember times when I had to ask Chiara for clarification in this sense. I just asked her general questions; one of these was if there are differences in the way women are socially considered between Northern and Southern states (to compare her answer with the situation here in Italy).

 

 

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A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience

 

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 the customs, holidays, food, hobbies, musical tastes, school and family life of foreign people.

 

 

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

Given the mixture of races American population consists in, I’m particularly interested in the differences among the various ethnic groups; for example, how much they have been assimilated into the mainstream culture, what problems people can have in everyday life because of their ethnicity, etc. Unfortunately, this is a topic I didn’t fully discussed with Chiara.

 

 

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 experienced this change in my perspective, i.e. in the way I look at my own culture, when we discussed immigration. Our American peers were convinced that immigrants are a resource (America is a country of immigrants!), and they told us that now all people living in America (Hispanic, African, Asian, European people) are all equally considered as Americans. I tried to see Italy from this point of view! Well, the path is still very long, but I tried! 

 

 

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:

Doing Skype was a great chance to assess how much I’m able to communicate in English and cope with other people’s reactions to what I say. During the exchange it sometimes happened that Chiara told us that she didn’t exactly understand what we wanted to say to her. Anyway, my peers and I usually coped with this by reformulating our sentences. In addition, Chiara often helped us by suggesting the missing words, and the same was when she didn’t know how to say something in Italian. This way our communication was always effective!

 

 

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:

As I said before, now I know more about U.S. society in general. Before I didn’t really know anything about the health care issue or the differences between Northern and Southern States, above all in the past. I also knew very little about the discrimination people from South America suffer, U.S. electoral system, or university life.

 

 

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

The whole exchange with Chiara is an example. I managed to interact with her and discuss everything in a constructive way. I learned that if you don’t understand something because of your lack of cultural knowledge, you should always ask for some explanation in order to get involved in the talk. This happened to me when Chiara spoke about NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States), for example.

 

 

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:

I think I didn't experience this kind of misunderstandings with Chiara.

 

 

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

Undoubtedly, informal ways to discover new information about American culture are reading blogs written by American people, meeting new American friends on Facebook and skyping with them, or reading U.S. forums; on the other hand, more formal tools are reading the online editions of some American newspapers, visiting governmental websites, listening to CNN or NPR podcasts, and watching breaking news videos on YouTube.

 

 

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Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

 

• words, expressions I learned in English:

1. slow-paced
2. laid-back
3. overachiever
4. well-rounded
5. to be taken aback by sth
6. caucus
7. delegate
8. super-delegate,
9. platform
10. landfill
11. c-section
12. maternity leave
13. to strive for sth

 

• improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation:

I listened to Chiara very carefully when she spoke in order to get aware of her pronunciation and intonation. Particularly, I paid attention to the pronunciation of the sound “th” which is one of my weak points!

 

• improvements in my listening:

It was the first time I had a real conversation with an American guy, and now I feel I have a better ear for the American way of speaking!

 

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

This is a point I’ve been reflecting on since when I spoke to Chiara in Italian for the first time! My Italian was a little different than that I use when I speak with my Italian friends, of course! I tried to use only colloquial language and simple sentences, although Chiara perfectly understood everything (think that when we didn’t understand something she said in English, she translated it into Italian :-) By the way, in my group, when we use less common words or words particularly tied to Italian culture, such as “badante”, “parto cesareo”, “discarica”, or “quote rosa”, we added a definition to let Chiara catch the meaning.

 

• words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project:

1.  women’s employment
2. wage discrimination
3. gender pay gap
4. to enforce a law
5. utilities

 

• improvements in my reading doing the wiki project:

I read a lot of articles, essays and statistical reports from U.S. websites (such as the website of the U.S. Department of  Labor) to write my wiki project so I read a lot of formal language. I found out that, while reading, I used the dictionary very few times because I understood almost everything (while writing, on the other hand, I tend to check nearly every single word in the monolingual dictionary! I always want to be as accurate as possible, but I hate myself for this! I’m so fussy :-). BTW, while reading, I paid a lot of attention to punctuation, sentence construction, and word order too.

 

• improvements in my writing doing the wiki project:

With regard to writing, one of the most evident improvements doing the wiki is that I learned not to write Italian-like sentences, i.e. very long and complex run-on sentences! Having a maximum number of words (ex. max. 800-1,000 words) that I could use helped me a lot to focus on the most important things and, thus, keep the discourse simple but precise. I tried to use more full stops and less semi-colons and not abuse linking adverbials too. All in all, I always kept in mind Sarah’s fundamental tip: be clear and concise!

 

 

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