Description of my feelings, knowledge and actions during the Exchange.

 Unfortunately I belong to the part of the class that didn’t do the Exchange for the whole semester, so my experience under this point of view is limited. For this reason I’ll answer the questions thinking about my general experiences outside the class as well.

 

 

A. Feelings

 

• Ways in which my curiosity and interest were aroused: (examples that made me re-consider my own culture) I was curios and interested almost in everything we were supposed to do, I liked the idea of the cultural exchange, even if I was really upset when the project with Poznan failed. 

   

• Moments in which I felt uncomfortable: (what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible) Generally I feel uncomfortable when I do something for the first time, it’s part of my personality, but this time I didn’t feel uncomfortable the first time I Skype, but all the times that came after! Probably the reason is that the first time I spoke with a person who made me be at my ease, whereas the second person who I spoke with was very shy and it was difficult for me to create a communication.

   

• Moments when I felt comfortable:(what made me feel like this, with particular examples if possible)I felt comfortable in working with my group, even if before starting I had known only a member of it. I say this because I think it’s important but not easy to create a feeling with the people with whom you work.

   

 

 

B. Knowledge

 

• The most important things I learnt about family life and/or life at school. They are very independent, they live their parents’ home early and they don’t care if they don’t have a sure job, or if they are still studying. This point is very far from our perspective! As for life at school I discovered that Americans do a prom at the end of each year! I thought it was only at the end of the last year.

• The most important things I have learnt about the country, the nation, the state of the target language. I noticed that young American people are more interested and active in politics than Italian young people. I discovered that thanks to my American tandem partner. ;-)

   

• 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). Actually I spoke a long time only with my tandem partner. I didn’t spoke a lot with Skype and with poor results, at least for what was not related to the wiki page.

   

 

 

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.  I don’t know if the answer I’m giving is right for this question! However, once Meg asked me why Italians complain always about their political situation and politicians (in particularly about Berlusconi), why they say that they don’t vote, and then, more than 80% went vote and Berlusconi won. So, why Italians don’t admit that they vote for Berlusconi? After this long question (supported by real data) I was embarrassed, because she was right, but I couldn’t explain the reason! I think it’s a matter of culture, I don’t know but Italians love complain for politics. It’s difficult to explain.   

   

   

• 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 was really curious about the way in which Americans decide who vote for at the elections, I mean, they vote for the person, not for the party the candidate belongs to, and for me this is difficult to understand. I made Meg many questions to understand why they don't vote for the ideas of the party. 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience^{[http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/infodok/ " href="http://tulanepadova.pbwiki.com/#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: From this point of viwe I really "exploited" Meg! She's from California, she studies in Santa Barbara...so the first thing I wanted to know is if her life there is exactly how we see in tv. For example I asked her if it is true that they go school with roller blade...and unfortunately it is not true! :-( They go there skating, roller blade are old fashion!!!

   

• 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 am interested in daily experience of groups not belonging to the dominant society, but actually I didn't have the occasion of knowing something about these kinds of groups.

   

 

 

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:

   

 

 

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:

   

 

 

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: Thanks to Meg  I know more about Bush administration. She is very interested in politics and she gave me her point of view (totally partial!) about domestic policy. And that’s something I couldn’t learn from anywhere else!

   

   

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

  Usually I am able to do that even if I am very shy. Luckily I am more curious than shy, I have always a lot of questions to make, and that’s a good point to start a conversation. But the conversation goes on in two and if the other person is very very shy…in that case I have some difficulties in maintaining a conversation! And that happened more times Skyping.

   

   

   

   

 

 

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 know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. Example: When I want to know something… I make questions! I remember that when I’ve known Meg (my tandem partner) I made her a lot of questions about Santa Barbara (the city where she studies), because I wanted to know if what I knew from the media where right or not!

 

 

 

Self-Assessment of my Language Learning

 

 

 

Please provide specific examples of the following:

 

 

 

• words, expressions I learned in English: “to have a crush on”, “prom”, “commencement”, “flaw”

   

   

• improvements in my pronunciation of certain words or intonation: I always try to repeat the words as they are pronounced by native speakers, and I try to repeat their intonation too, but it’s very difficult! Above all when I’m explaining something, or just speaking for more than 1 minutes: I’ve noticed that in these cases I am more concentrated in what I’m saying, in finding words etc. than in paying attention to my intonation. HoweverI hope to be improved!

   

   

• improvements in my listening: At the beginning it’s difficult to understand an American speaking at the phone, above all when they speak fast and join the words! But when I get used to the voice and to the way of speaking, there are no more problems.

   

   

• changes in the way I speak Italian to non-native speakers: Actually when I Skyped I spoke more slowly, because Marigny’s Italian wasn’t very good, but she could understand almost everything of what we said. When she didn’t understand something we repeated the sentence more slowly or in other words.

   

   

• words, expressions I learned doing the wiki project: “commencement”, “hood”

   

   

• improvements in my reading doing the wiki project: Searching for news for our wiki page I had to read a lot web sources so I practiced the technique of reading only the parts that could be interested in. It’s something that I’m used to do in Italian, but in English…

   

   

• improvements in my writing doing the wiki project: I don’t know if I should see particular improvements because I wrote a paragraph in a wiki page, but surely it helped in improving my general writing skills. 

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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