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) I was struck by the fact that Americans see Italians like lazy people. I could never judge Italians this way. On the contrary, I always thought that Italians are a people of hard workers and I thought that our image of “lazy people” was wrong. And I still think we are hard workers! To tell the truth, at the beginning I felt a bit offended, but then I realised that they were only stereotypes.

   

• Moments in which I felt uncomfortable: (what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible) To tell the truth, I never felt uncomfortable because I always felt like talking to a friend and, although some topics were new to me, I always tried to say what I thought.

   

• Moments when I felt comfortable:(what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible) I felt comfortable when we had the meeting with Chiara Olivi. It was good to see that she was “one of us” even though she’s living in the other side of the world. I would rather have another meeting with her to talk about our cultures.

   

 

 

B. Knowledge

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

   

I already knew more or less how the life in a campus was. I didn’t know how different the education system is. I think they are very different from each other and I see positive and negative features in both. For example, the good aspect in the American system is that students are encouraged to reflect on what they learn and give their opinions. This aspect should be intensified in the Italian system, where students are told to learn the books and never say what they think about.

 

• The most important things I have learnt about the country, the nation, the state of the target language. The most important things I have learnt about the USA is the difference between North and South. I had no idea that they have this division and that they have stereotypes of each other. During the writing of the wikipage we learnt that the differences and the stereotypes are almost the same as in Italy, and some states want to secede too. I didn’t think that there could be some states that want to secede in a federal country.

   

• 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 group it was difficult to find a subject of interest. We tried to talk about the topics given. As far as the greetings is concerned, I didn’t find any differences between the two 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. Fortunately, I didn’t find any difficulty in explaining my own culture.

   

• 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 had difficulties in understanding the American political election system. Me and my group had to ask several questions to our American peer in order to understand it because it is very different from the Italian one. However, it seems that I didn’t understand everything because I understood that in April we would have known who would be the democrat candidate, but this didn’t happen.   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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: It is difficult to find something that American films had never said about the USA, I think that we should see if everything is true; for example, I would like to know if it is true that there are so many divorces in the USA and how children react to this situation.

   

• 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’m interested in the life of African-Americans in the USA. I’m currently studying their diasporic experience and learning their history throughout the centuries. At the moment we are watching films directed also by African-American people showing their experience and their life also in America.

   

 

 

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: When we talked about the different education systems in the USA and in Italy with Chiara, I understood her point of view and the positive and negative features of both systems.

   

 

 

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: To tell the truth, I didn’t find any difficulty in speaking with our American peers. I felt like talking with students like us. The only different I caught was that they live in another country with another culture, but I didn’t find any difficulty. We had some difficulties when we spoke in Italian, of course because they have been learning Italian for only two years. However, we managed well to interact and understand each other.

   

 

 

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 didn’t know that also in the USA there are differences between North and South, and that they come from almost the same period, even though for different reasons.

   

• I know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain a conversation. Example: This was a difficult task for me because I don’t talk so much even with people that I know very well. However, as I’m very interested in politics, I made a lot of questions about the electoral system in the USA and I think to have explained very well the situation in Italy to our American peer.  

   

 

 

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: Working on the wikipage, we had some difficulties in doing the Italian part because our American peer told us that she had not time to do it because she had less time than us to work on it. At the beginning we didn’t understand each other because it seemed that we had to do anything but the wikipage, while the Americans had a lot of exams. In the end we managed to understand each other and see that we had different deadlines for the other subjects, In fact, at the beginning we tried to do as much as possible because most of our deadlines are in the middle of May, while the deadlines in America were the early days of the month, so they are doing their work on the wikipage these days.

   

 

• I know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. Example: Working on the wikipage, I discovered new information and new aspects about the differences between North and South searching on the web, on wikipedia, using del.icio.us and on YouTube.

   

 

 

 

 

Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

 

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

 

 

 

• words, expressions I learned in English: The word I learned that most struck me is the past of “to learn”. I thought that the only right word was learnt, but then I saw that two of my peers wrote “learned” in their blogs, and I checked in the dictionary.

   

• improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation: --

   

• improvements in my listening: American accent

   

• changes in the way I speak Italian to non-native speakers: I speak slowly, and avoid difficult words using synonyms like “non essere d’accordo” instead of “dissociarsi”

   

• words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project: redneck, backwater, far-flung, ploy

   

• improvements in my reading doing the wiki project: --

   

• improvements in my writing doing the wiki project: I avoid words such as “furthermore” and “in addition”. I write shorter sentences.

   

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