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)

Since for our wiki page we had to focus on the life style of College students compared to that of University students in Italy, the fact itself that there were lot of differences between the two kinds of students of course aroused my curiosity. Moreover my peer was Spanish and it was really interesting to point out together what these differences consisted in and analysed them together

 

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

There were no moments in which I felt uncomfortable. Maybe I felt like these especially during the first Skype session when I didn’t fully understand what my peer were talking about, so I had to ask her constantly “I’m really sorry  but I didn’t understand: could you repeat please?”.

 

 

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

After the first Skype session I always felt comfortable while talking to my peer. She’s Spanish and I think that the fact of talking to someone who was born in Europe and relatively near my native country helped me feeling at ease and talking more freely about American life style and American students because often our points of view and our reflections or reactions were  similar.

 

 

B. Knowledge

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

The most important thing I learnt about life at school is that College students pay very high taxes if compared to us but they have a lot of opportunities and some meaningful “privileges” we don’t have as University students. For instance they have the possibility to do sports or extra-scholastic activities of every kind within the campus and they have a lot of price reductions. Moreover I think that, the fact of living all together in a campus make the students fell more united, as if they were a community within a community and as a consequence that might have more possibilities to know each other, while here in Italy things are quite different.

 

 

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

We had only three Skype sessions with our peer, so we actually didn’t have enough time to discuss these issues, although, having worked for much time on US election there were a lot of questions I wanted to ask, but we decided to focus on our wiki page and  leave out all the rest.

 

 

• 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 didn’t learn anything in particular about customs or conventions of talking with people: we used to start our conversation in English saying simply “Hi Rocio, how are you…” and at the end we used to leave her with “Bye Rocio, take care and see you next week”. Anyway during the Skype session we used to switch From English to Italian and sometimes to Spanish too, in other words we used a mix of the three languages.

 

      

 

 

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.

There were problems or incidents of this kind.

 

 

• 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)

      At the beginning I often had to ask for clarifications because I didn’t understand how things worked within the College, especially regards the first topic we had to discuss, that was 

      accommodation.  Sometimes I also met some difficulties in explaining our peer how students live here in Padova: I had to focus on the way students  party and  it wasn’t always that easy to describe   

      what we actually do to have fun (also because she had no idea of how the city of Padua is structured, the places the students usually meet, how they get to them etc..), why we do it, what we drink.

      Moreover sometimes there were some interference from the Spanish culture so I had to clarify some points

---

 

 

 

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:

      Considering the topic of our wiki page I was highly interested in the daily life of students: I remember talking with Rocio about the extra- scholastic activities she was taking and she spent some time in     

      describing the dance show she was preparing.

 

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

Yes, I was interested in the way Erasmus students live and behave in the campus and our peer asked me questions about this particular group of students as well. She asked if they try to integrate with Italian students and if the use to party with us. 

 

 

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:

Unfortunately I can’t provide any example.

 

 

 

 

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:

It happened sometimes that I was surprised or particularly enthusiastic about  what our peer  told me about American students so came out with some Italian expressions like “wow, che figo” that it English would sound like “wow, this is really cool”. The first and only time I did it Rocio started to laugh, she was evidently amused by it – or at least this is what I perceived – and then I translated the meaning of such an informal expression.

 

 

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:

Unfortunately I can’t provide any example.

 

 

 

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

I must admit that it wasn’t so difficult to maintain a conversation with our peer: we had so many questions and practically no time to waste. So there were no silences at all, also because we used to create a conference in Skype  to give all the members of the group the opportunity of listening to the conversation, asking question etc... In this way we could all intervene if there were misunderstandings.

 

 

 

 

 

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 actually didn’t have to resolve any misunderstand: it happened that our peer confused our “Aperitivo” consisting in going to one of the three main squares in the centre of Padova and have a Spriz with the Spanish Botellon, which is something slightly different.

 

 

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

      I used to ask different questions on the basis of the information I needed for the wiki, making at the same time some comparisons with Italy and the life style of Italian students.

 

---

 

Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

 

• words, expressions I learned in English:

      “Dorms” for dormitories, “frats” or “Greek” for fraternities. I also discovered that similar female organizations are called “sororities”.

 

 

• improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation:

      In this moment I can’t think of any word I pronounce better after the exchange.

 

 

• improvements in my listening:

      I think there were meaningful improvements as far as my listening skills are concerned.

 

 

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

      Well, after this exchange I think I will surely try to be more clear and precise when talking in Italian to non-native speaker.

 

• words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project:

      I don’t think there were particular words or expressions I learned doing the Wiki.

 

 

• improvements in my reading doing the wiki project:

      As we relied on our personal experience to write our Wiki page, we didn’t have to look for further information in the Net, so as a consequence I don’t think there were meaningful improvements in my

      reading skills.

 

• improvements in my writing doing the wiki project:

      As regards my writing skills, I think there were some improvements. When our partner connected to edit our Wiki page she used to take a look to our paragraph in English and I realized that she   

      corrected me some little mistakes and other little things I didn’t care about so I am really grateful to her for this collaboration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Unfortunately I can’t provide any example.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Create your own educational wiki!HelpPublic, not yet premium Privacy Policy RSS