My Experience of the Exchange

 

My Experience of the Exchange Description of my feelings, knowledge and actions during the Exchange. A. Feelings B. Knowledge C. Actions A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience A. Interest in other people's way of life B. Ability to change perspective C. Ability to cope with communicating in a different language with a different culture D. Knowledge about another country and culture E. Knowledge about intercultural communication Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

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) My curiosity was aroused through Skype. I had never used it before and I really like it! It gave me the possibility to speak with an American girl, Corina, and I appreciated this possibility because, speaking with her, I discovered something new about American lifestyle and University life. I was very interested in her kind of life and we indeed spent lot of time taking about this kind of topic. She described us how she normally spend her days and her nights and I was surprised in seeing that, more or less, we are similar! I found interesting the search of information about the American health care system as well. In Italy there's often the opinion that in America you don't receive any kind of medical assistance if you are not insured. Thanks to this exchange I discover how the American healthcare system actually works and it make me think about our system because it is very different but each ones has its both positive and negative sides.

• Moments in which I felt uncomfortable: (what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible) Sometimes I felt a bit uncomfortable when, speaking with our American peer, we tended to use more English than Italian even if we were supposed to speak  "fifty-fifty" (both English and Italian). This happened sometimes because she found difficult to speak in Italian and, even if I tried to speak slowly, she didn't understand always what we were saying, so it was natural to turn our speech into English. However, I knew that this was not good for her and so I felt a bit uncomfortable because I didn't understand if she preffered to speak in English or if she used it only to make our conversation better for us.  

• Moments when I felt comfortable:(what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible) I usually felt comfortable during our "Skype-meeting" because my American peer was very friendly and we really enjoyed it! Moreover, I felt good in my group and so our conversations were very natural and pleasant! In the work for the wikipage I really felt "free" in changing something or proposing new ideas. In conclusion, the "context" was very good for the exchange and so, the creation of the wikipage was not a "weight" but a interesting and pleasant work and learning experience.

B. Knowledge

• The most important things I learnt about family life and/or life at school. The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that In the USA almost all the students live far from home. Corina told us her family story and we discovered that her mother comes from Italy. It seems to be quite normal for her so I thought that America has a different way of thinking about immigration. 

• The most important things I have learnt about the country, the nation, the state of the target language. Te think tat really surprised me is the fact that in the USA there are waiting lists in hospital. Television (e. g. ER) shows us an perfect American healthcare system and I really didn't think that there could be "problems" in America as well. Obviously the situation is better that in Italy but it was a surprise for me. Moreover, I'm happy to know how this system actually works.

• 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). Speaking with my peer, I didn't find topics she preferred not to talk about: we were free and she was pretty interested in Italy and its culture. Moreover, I discovered that she knew something of our political situation.

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. in our group we didn't experience misunderstandings with our peer.

• 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): we talked about healthcare and I asked her information about their system because I wanted to understand if the idea Italians have of it is only a sterotype or not. I had to work out mu answer when I had to explain her that our system is "free": it was difficult to us to understand it because they are two completely different systems.

 

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 was interested in knowing how Corina spend her week-end and how is the University-life. It was daily-life which interested me the most!

• I am also interested in the daily experience of a variety of social groups within a society and not only the dominant culture. Example: We talked a lot about immigration and how immigrants are seen in the USA. We also asked her if she felt "immigrant" because of her mother origins but she answer she don't. In general, we noticed that they have a different perception of immigration.

 

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: the thing that made me think a lot about difference in culture was the searching of information about political campaigns: American ones are very different from Italian ones and I think that it helped me in changing my point of view in order to understand them.

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: When Corina didn't understand what I was saying the reasons were two: - I expressed myself in a bad way, - the concept was difficult to her because it was different from her culture. So I was used to speak slowly and to use other words and try to explain the general cultural situation.

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've already said, I learnt that American healthcare system is very different from the Italian one, that also their way of viewing and "living" politics is different and that their idea of immigration is no more seen as a big problem as it is in Italy.

• I know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain a conversation. Example: Even if we didn't know each other we have no problem to speak and we had so many questions that the conversations never turned into an embarrassing silence!

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: Any misunderstandings happened with our peer but I think that we would have tried to explain better what we think.

• I know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. Example: I think Internet gives us a big opportunity from this point of view: you can find everything you want and you can partecipate to forums which are a great means to discover a culture.

 

Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

• words, expressions I learned in English: to provide medical care, -coverage, -physicians

• improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation: my pronunciation is not good so every time I speak English is a good exercise for me. Moreover, I think this exchange helped me to be speak more fluently-

• improvements in my listening: conversations helped me to better understand American because it is not so easy for me because I have always studied British English.

• changes in the way I speak Italian to non-native speakers: I learnt to speak slowly and to choose simple words.

• words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project: I learnt many new words linkend with healthcare such as ER, coverage, transplants..

• improvements in my reading doing the wiki project: to create our wiki I actually read many articles and long and difficult essays so I can say that I improved my reading skills because they were not easy to understand.

• improvements in my writing doing the wiki project: this project helped me also with my writing skills because, after having read so many articles, I had to create MY article and it involved the skills to elaborate, organize and create a coherent and cohesive text. I hope it was good.

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