Well, there weren't specific ways in which my curiosity was aroused: I was just curious to know as much as possible about my peer's way of living and traditions. That's why I tried to go as deep as possible into all the topics we explored during our exchange. I was particularly interested in American college life (mainly because it is so different from here) and American health care system. I asked many questions when we dealt with these issues and I always tried to compare the situation in America with the situation in my country.

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

Actually, I've never felt uncomfortable. The first times I met my peer on Skype I was a little bit embarrassed and quite nervous, but I think it's pretty normal since I was talking with someone I did not know. However, this feeling disappeared as soon as I got to know Sharon better.

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

My peer was really nice so it wasn't hard to feel at ease while talking to her. I felt particularly comfortable when we talked about ourselves, about our everyday life with our friends and family. In these occasions felt like I was talking to a friend just for pleasure...I didn't have the impression I was doing that because it was part of my English weekly tasks.

Knowledge

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

I was especially struck by College life in general. I've learnt that students at university live together as they were part of the same family, so most of the times you form the closest friendship while you're living in the campus. I thought that is something very different from my own experience in Italy.

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

I have learnt more about their true way of living. From TV we usually get quite a distorted idea of how life in the States is. I think now I know much more about life in the campus and students' everyday life. Another issue I went deeper into is the health care system in the US. I really had little knowledge of it before, and it was extremely interesting to talk about it with my peer.

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).

Personally, I had the feeling I could talk about everything with my peer. I noticed that the Americans were very interested in politics and current issues. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were eager to know more about Italy and the Italian culture. I had the impression they did not want to talk a lot about the war in Iraq (the majority of them were against it). Maybe they have been hearing SO much about it in these years that they are a little bit fed up with this topic. What I realized is that generally Americans are NOT PROUD AT ALL of it...It's quite the opposite of the idea you usually get from the media.

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.

Fortunately, I never experienced these kinds of misunderstandings or problems.

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)

During the exchange period I asked many questions about almost every topic. Especially in the last period we talked a lot about immigration and I asked Sharon questions about the attitude shown by Americans towards immigrants. I was eager to know how Americans feel towards foreign people living in the US; they have been dealing with immigration forever and I think we could learn a lot from their experience.

A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience

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: students' everyday life at the college, family life, political and social issues presented from common people's point of view.

I am also interested in the daily experience of a variety of social groups within a society and not only the dominant culture. Example: I discussed with my peer about her own attitude towards immigrants who live in the States. We had plenty of chances to discuss thoroughly about the condition of Mexicans as we partially dealt with this issue in our final project.

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: It was really interesting to see what idea of Italy she had. I was pleasantly surprised as I noticed it was very positive...I can say that sometimes she freed me form the prejudices I had of my own culture... :-)

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:

Actually, we never had problems when communicating. Of course, when we talked in the foreign language we both made mistakes, but this never affected the meaning of our conversation. In other words, we could always understand each other and that was the most important thing.

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 have learnt a lot more about university and election system but also about the everyday life of the typical American student...which is actually pretty different from what you see in "O.C." or "Beverly Hills 90210" ;-)

I know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain a conversation. Example: I always try to be curious about the culture/tradition of the person I am talking to. I usually ask questions to know more about the issues we are dealing with, but sometimes this can also be a problem as I tend to interrupt people when they are still speaking :-|

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 wrote before, during the exchange I never experienced misunderstandings. I think that was because American and Italian culture are not SO different after all. Well, ok, of course there are some significant differences in the way of living, but we both belong to the so-called "Western World". Furthermore, my peer had Italian origins, so I noticed we had MORE OR LESS the same cultural background (religion, hobbies, experiences in life...). I am sure we would have experienced many more misunderstandings if we had done an exchange with students from Asia, Africa or the Middle-East.

I know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. Example: Through "del.icio.us" we could share websites so now I have access to many good sources of material about current issues in the US.

Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

Please provide specific examples of the following:

words, expressions I learned in English: to dorm, to work off the records, pie chart, solar panels, internship, to pull out, political platform

improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation: I always tried to listen carefully to my peer when she spoke and 'imitate' her accent and intonation. I think I am more aware now of the differences between Italian and English, and my intonation is less flat than before. I focused especially on the pronunciation of the 'H', which was a little problem for me since I tended not to pronounce it at all (as we do in Italian).

improvements in my listening: now I am more familiar with the American accent and I realize that when I'm watching TV programs or movies.

changes in the way I speak Italian to non-native speakers: First of all, I learnt to be more patient. I learnt to express myself in a simpler way and to speak CLEARLY. I forced myself to speak without swallowing my words and I tried to avoid every local term which might have been difficult for my peer to understand. In the end, I think my Italian has improved someway as well.

words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project: pie chart, alien, to work off the records/off the books, to enforce a law.

improvements in my reading doing the wiki project: I've been reading quite a lot of stuff for my Wiki project lately. That helped me revise some vocabulary (especially phrasal verbs) and grammar (verb tenses, use of punctuation...)

improvements in my writing doing the wiki project: I had the chance to revise all grammatical structures in general. Now I think my written English is more fluent as I learnt to express difficult concepts with simple words. I'm not only speaking about English, but also about my mother tongue: I wrote some parts in Italian and it was hard to avoid redundancy and too formal words.

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Eleonora Carta_ICC_Assessment

Description of my feelings, knowledge and actions during the Exchange

Feelings