1. 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 I don't often  have  the possibility to talk with American people, I felt very curious  during our skype exchange. I was very interested in politics and University life. I tried to get information before the meeting so to have a wider knowledge of the issue and then I tried to listen carefully to what my peer had to say and compare it then to what I already knew. 

• Moments in which I felt uncomfortable: (what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible)
• Although I found it really interesting talking to my peer on Skype, I feel more comfortable in face-to-face communication. To me body language and facial expression (non-verbial communication) play a very important role in conversation and make it more effective. As regards to the  final project I noticed that my American peer was not very much motivated. Cristina, Stella and me tried to do our best and helped our American peer, too. We suggested the websites that could be useful for her, we found videos on youtube about the Italian situation and tried to correct her part as well. It looked as if the group was made up of three people instead of four. Furthermore, during the Skype exchange it was very difficult to talk in Italian. I think my peer didn't feel comfortable in talking in Italian. This is a pity because she missed  the possibility to practise the language she is learning.

• Moments when I felt comfortable:(what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible)
• I felt particularly comfortable when I talked to my peer about some experiencies/hobbies we had in common. For example, we talked about our holidays and we found out that we had been to the same place in Sardinia. I was interested in comments about that.

 

B. Knowledge

• The most important things I learnt about family life and/or life at school.
• I was very surprised to see that my peer is very attached to her family. Although she lives far away because of University, she often goes and meets her parents. I like that, I think family is very important in people's life.

• The most important things I have learnt about the country, the nation, the state of the target language.
• Actually I didn't know much about the American health care system, I didn't know it is such a big issue. That's definetly something I learnt from my peer. I also realized that Americans are fed up with war.

• 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).
• As I said before, non-face-to-face conversation is not easy for me. It was no easy task to recognize when it was my turn to speak, so silent dominated. Other times we all spoke together and nobody could understand anything. It is important not to speak when somebody is speaking but you also have to be ready to talk when he/she has finished. As regards to topics, we talked about everything, no taboos.

 

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.
• We never had particular problems. Sometimes, if you have never visited  one country, you may  believe in prejudices which depict only a small part of reality. It was necessary to explain that some other aspects must be taken into consideration, too. I remember that once we had a discussion on 'meritocrazia' and 'raccomandazioni'. My American peer thought that the word 'raccomandato' has a positive meaning in Italian. We explained that most of times this word depicts a negative situation.
• 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 didn't know much about American politics. My peers and me talked a lot about American and Italian elections, we shared our opinions and then we compared them. Before these meetings,  I didn't think that politics could interest me so  much!

 

 

2.A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience^{[http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/infodok/sprogforum/Espr18/byram.html A record of my Intercultural Experience" href="http://tulanepadova.pbwiki.com/ICC_Assessment#footnote-3">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:
• I was very interested in extra-curricula activities of American students, we talked a lot about how life in College 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:
• We didn't talk about social groups and their daily experience .

 

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 that to understand other cultures we need to speak with local people and visit the country personally. I tried to take as much as possible advantage from this experience.

 

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:
• As I said before non-verbial communication is important to me, especially because I can see people's reaction to what I say. Despite that, we didn't have  many problems in understanding each other. If something was not clear, I simply asked my peer for explanations and she had no problems in repeating what she said. To me it was the same.

 

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 learnt a lot about the American election system. Before, I didn't understand why elections last so long compared to our system. Here everything happens in one-two days, there it takes mounths. Now I know that is because the election of the President consists of a network of elections and that there are three stages.

• I know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain a conversation. Example:
• I've always tried to maintain the coversation interesting for my peer and me. We tried to talk as much as possible in order to get to know each other better.

 

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:
• We never had particularly serious misunderstandings. The conversation was fluent and if it happened that somebody didn't know much about one issue we simply tried to explain it. In any case, nobody was stuck in his/her opinion. Talking to other people is an opportunity to change your mind and get to know things from another point of view.

• I know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. Example:
• We asked each other a lot of questions

 

 

 

 

3.Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

 

• words, expressions I learned in English:
• to feel trapped, to enact a law, middle ground,

• improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation:
• the word 'adult' is pronounced with accent on the second syllable (ad'ult). This particular word struck my attention but in general I've always tried to listen carefully to my peer in order to improove my pronunciation.

• improvements in my listening:
•   Improvement in listening is possible just by listening. Furthermore, it is useful to listen to different people because they may have different accents.
• changes in the way I speak Italian to non-native speakers:
• I tried  to speak slowly, my peer has been studing Italian only for 2 years.
• words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project:
• to approach the business world; under the law; workforce; to be overly emotional; family caretaking; leave; shortcut;
• improvements in my reading doing the wiki project:
• Reading invloved improvement in  the moment I read a word I didn't know before. I go and look it up in the dictionary and I try to memorize it and use it afterwords.
• improvements in my writing doing the wiki project:
• While writing I focus my attention on: cohesion, coherance, spelling of words, synatax, and of course grammar.

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