...Looking back at my PLE...

Hello people!
Well, I thought it was finished, but actually we are yet to have our finest hour:-) In fact, we have not talked about our PLE anymore, and I do agree that it might be interesting to see how it has developed during these months. So I stepped back to my oldest posts and had a look at my mindmap…The first thing I noticed was that no big changes took place, although I cannot say my PLE is exactly the same as six months ago.

If I had to draw my mindmap again, I would keep the main division between my learning at university and outside it. As I explained in class, I am convinced that what we learn at university is not enough to reach a high level in English (of course I am not saying it useless or unimportant!). Unfortunately, we usually have large numbers so if we really want to practice the language we have to do it by ourselves. I would also keep the division into the four branches which correspond to the four different abilities. They are clearly not the same so I think they should be considered independent parts of a whole. I mean, you can be very good at writing but extremely bad at speaking or vice versa. Personally, I still feel more confident in writing than in speaking or listening, although thanks to the exchange I had the chance to practice a lot ;-)

As regards my learning at university, I think that this semester the comments on my peers’ blogs did not play such a big role as in the first part of the year. Furthermore, the ‘Padova-Albany’ forum disappeared from my mindmap, or better, it was replaced by the ‘Padova-Dickinson’ forum :-)
In the section called ‘tools’ there have been no significant changes: I still use both 'bloglines' and 'delicious' and I had already been using 'Skype' for a while before starting the exchange. However, this semester I got to know other two useful tools to keep in touch with my peers and foreign friends: 'MySpace' and 'Facebook'. Another important source of learning was of course our WIKI PAGE; it was a great occasion to practice my writing skills but also my ability to work in group. I know it may sound trivial, but organizing and planning some work together with other people is something we will surely have to do in our future job… And we’d better learn to do it now since it is far from being easy :-) That is why I think that working in group has been a fundamental part of my PLE lately.

I think people still play the most important role when it comes to communicate in English in my free time. Over the last months I had the chance to ‘meet’ new foreign friends I can practice with (I am talking about my American peer as well) and I am really happy about it. As I stressed when I presented my PLE, we do need people if we want to speak the language. We must get some kind of feedback; we cannot just talk to ourselves in front of the mirror (that would not be so fun I guess!). The only possible way to improve our speaking skills is meeting non-native speakers of Italian (I know it is extremely useful to talk in English also during class with our peers, but it is quite awkward as we are all native speakers of the same language).

In the next future I hope I my mindmap will keep growing… And I am not only talking about languages. At this time next year I will be probably (and hopefully!) working…And God knows how many new things I will have to learn then…

Lately I have been thinking about the meaning of the word “learning”, and I have realized I have always associated it with school/university rather than with the world of work. No need to explain that I was quite wrong… ;-)

Ok, that’s all folks. Good luck for your exams and have a nice summer!

Last post about "Intercultural Competence"

Hi there!
I have not written on this blog for a while and, sad but true, this is probably going to be my last post :-(
The semester has almost finished, so it is time to sit down and reflect on what I have been learning during these months.

The main ‘topic’ in this second part of the year has been intercultural competence and we tried to ‘gain’ it somewhere doing an exchange with an American university.
As I wrote on my mid-term paper, I was actually a little bit disappointed about the exchange we did in winter… Of course it was nobody’s fault if it did not work out properly, but I must say I felt as we had missed a great opportunity. That is why I did not have great expectations when we gave it another try at the beginning of March. To tell the truth, I was not very optimist as I had always experienced that native speakers of English are not so interested in getting to know other cultures… They come from the so-called 'dominating culture', they speak the language that the entire world has to speak… So it is quite obvious that they are usually less motivated than us.

But this time things have been COMPLETELY different. First of all, the Americans were students of Italian so they were also willing to practice a foreign language. Then I think I was very lucky since my peer was really eager to know Italy and the Italian way of living better; she had a lot of enthusiasm and always did her best to speak Italian whenever possible. I had a wrong idea of the attitude Americans had towards other cultures, and that led me to have a wrong attitude towards them sometimes. Now I have learnt that they are not all SO proud: they can be very open-minded, and accepting this fact I have learnt to be more open-minded as well.

During these months my knowledge about life in the States has improved significantly. Now I know more about college life, politics and crucial social issues as health-care system and illegal immigration. It was a great chance to hear the opinion of someone who actually lives there… Much better than just believing to what we get from the media. I hope my peer could learn something from me, too, even though sometimes it was hard to answer to her very specific questions about Italian politics ;-) In fact, I think this period was useful for ‘revising’ some history of my own country as well (and also to learn things I had very little knowledge about).

As reagards language, I know it is only a small part of intercultural competence, but I think it played a fundamental role in my exchange experience. I must say I am thoroughly satisfied of my progress in spoken English. When I decided to skype in my spare time, I was a little bit worried because I knew that things would be more difficult to organize… And that was partially true, especially when it came to work on our final project. Anyway, I also learnt to appreciate the fact that there were just two of us in our group(Stefania joined us only at the end of April). That meant talking a lot in English and Italian; I think Sharon and I were maybe the only ones who had the chance to speak half an hour in English and half an hour in Italian every week. I was very happy about it since speaking is the skill I needed to practice most. I know it is still going to be a long way till I can say my English is really fluent, but I am sure there have been significant improvements :-)

Finally, I would like to thank all my peers I had the pleasure to work with over this year. I feel I have learnt a lot from them, and, above all, I have learnt to know them and their opinions better. Moreover, I would like to thank Sarah: all this would not have been possible without her enthusiasm and hard work. Yea, the course was quite time-demanding and there was often a lot of stuff to do… But now I am convinced it was worth it.

Mmm… I must admit I feel a little bit sorry now that the course has finished… It has never happened to me before… weird feeling… ;-)

BYE!!

Sixth Skype exchange/Wiki Page

Hi everybody!

Yesterday I spoke with Sharon about our FINAL PROJECT. As I have already written here, we would like to concentrate on illegal immigration in Italy and the USA. We realized that the topic is rather 'wide' so we decided to narrow it a little bit and focuse on the attitude which people and media show towards this issue.

Our Wiki page will be divided into 5 sections:

1. PART ONE: INTRODUCTION (Eleonora, English/Italian)

• What is 'illegal immigration'? (in general)
• About Group 16. Here I will put all our contacts (email addresses, Skype names, TAG used in del.icio.us....), so that if we need some information we will find it here :-)

2. PART TWO: THE ISSUE IN AMERICA (Stefania, English)

• General information about 'illegal immigration' in the USA: numbers (how many illegal immigrants are there in the US more or less?), nationalities (where do they mostly come from?), places (are there some specific States/areas where we find illegal immigrants?)
• Media's/people's opinion: in this section we could put two links (a forum and an article taken from an American newspaper) and see what people and media 'think' about illegal immigrants...And of course, we will try to understand WHY they have that particular attitude towards them :-)

3. PART THREE: THE ISSUE IN ITALY (Sharon, Italian)

• See above (PART TWO). These two parts should be as parallel as possible, so I think we'd better follow the same pattern for both of them. Of course, this section will concentrate on 'illegal immigration' in Italy...So the forum will be in Italian and the article taken from an Italian newspaper :-)

4. PART FOUR: COMPARISON BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES (Eleonora, English and Italian)

• Differencies and similarities in the two countries.
• Conclusion

5. PART FIVE: REFERENCES (Bibliography)

• Here we'll put all the URLs of the websites we got material from...:-)

Of course, we can add pictures, videos (and captions) or anything else!

Hope this is clear enough,

SEE YOU!

Fifth Skype exchange

Hi everybody!
After having spent the last weeks talking about politics and elections, this time we focused on another crucial issue: immigration.
As I wrote on the previous post, Sharon and I had already discussed briefly about it, but on Tuesday we went deeper into the matter and learnt more about this phenomenon in the two countries.

I must say it was quite an interesting conversation as the word 'immigration' has a very different meaning in Italy and USA. In the States basically everybody comes from somewhere else: let’s look for example at our peers at Dickinson. Most of them have foreign origins and their grandparents were often immigrants. America was born thanks to immigrants: they left their own countries, they settled in the ‘New Continent’, started a new life there and contributed to its economic growth. Therefore, it is pretty obvious that Americans and Italians usually have a different attitude towards immigration.
As Sarah said, Italy has known this issue only for the past 10-15 years. Traditionally, Italy was a ‘country of emigrants’ and only at the beginning of the 90’s it really turned into a ‘country of immigrants’. Sometimes I have the impression we still have to get used to different cultures living in the same place…And probably our politicians are not yet used to that, either, since they often have not been able to deal properly with immigration over these years.
On the contrary, America is well-known as a big melting pot where people from about 50 different nationalities live and work together. As I wrote before, many of them were born in the States, but there are also a lot of foreigners who move to the US to find a job and start a better life.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy for all of them to integrate in the American society. Sharon told me at the time they are having serious problems especially with Mexicans. They often cross the border without visa and documents, they do not speak English so all they can do to survive is selling drugs or robbing. This leads some Americans to have strong prejudices against them and sometimes to take advantage of them, too. In fact, above all in California Mexicans are usually discriminated and are forced to do the worst jobs for very low wages.
I told Sharon we are also having big problems especially with gypsies since they are very difficult to integrate (and maybe they did not want to, either). I am sure not all of them are criminals, nor I think they should all be sent away; but undoubtedly, their culture is so different from ours that it is hard to see a solution for this problem. I would not ask them to give up their traditions, it would be enough if they sent their children to school instead of let them begging and robbing on the streets.

When there are integration problems, there is less tolerance and racism is more likely to spread. Unfortunately, every now and then in both countries we still hear stories of natives who beat or insult immigrants; in the US, this happens more often in Southern States, where Mexicans and black people are sometimes discriminated.

After our long conversation, we came up with the conclusion that legal immigration is a precious source of work and cultural richness for our countries. The real problem is illegal immigration.
It is a problem for both the ‘host-country’ and the immigrants themselves, who often have to decide between breaking the law and starving. At the moment this is a crucial point in Italy as well as in America, so that is why we decided to concentrate on this issue in our final project.

I hope it all goes well and that you will find it interesting ;-)

See you!

Immigration

As soon as I began to think what I could write on this post, I realized I did not know much about the rules which regulate immigration in Italy. Of course, I remembered that the law called “Turco-Napolitano” had been substituted by “Bossi-Fini”, which had partially been changed by Prodi’s government. But I just had a faint idea of how they dealt with this issue, so I looked for more information on the Web and I found the following links (in Italian):

• Legge Bossi-Fini
• DDL Amato-Ferrero

The whole system seems quite complicated; what is clear is that every immigrant must have a job before coming to Italy, otherwise he/she cannot get the permission to stay here. The “Bossi-Fini” law provoked a lot of discussion since it was much more restrictive than the previous one (“Turco-Napolitano”). Moreover, I found out that it was also criticized by Amnesty International because it did not grant political asylum as it should have done according to international laws. Amato and Ferrero, who were part of Prodi's government, tried to cut the red tape for high-qualified foreigners and postponed the expiry date of work visas.

I think Italy does need immigrants. This is not just my opinion, it is simply a well- known fact. Take a look at this:

• L'immigrazione in Italia

Italy’s population grows thanks to foreign families. In 2004 immigrants paid taxes for 1.87 billion €; in 2005 they contributed to our GDP for 6.1%.
Just yesterday evening I heard on TV that Italian small companies cannot find plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, hairdressers, tailors and carpenters. In these fields there are a lot of jobs available, but it seems that Italians prefer studying or working in offices rather than “using their hands”. That is why artisans' associations are thinking to ask for workers coming from abroad; the same has already happened with nurses and caregivers.
I also think that immigrants who live, work and pay taxes here should have the right to vote. I have got one friend who was born in Romania but has been living here since he was 13. He attended the high school here, he has been working for an Italian company and paying taxes to the Italian state for almost 10 years now. Despite this, he cannot decide who he wants to be governed by because he does not have the Italian citizenship. I do not know how it works in other European countries, but honestly I find the situation here quite absurd.

The real problem is illegal immigration. I read Enrico’s post and I agree with him when he says that an illegal immigrant cannot do anything legal… So it is quite obvious that when you are desperate, you just end up robbing or trafficking in drugs if you want to survive.
I think the government should be more strict with people who break the law, no matter if foreigners or Italians. Gypsies who steal in houses or rape women MUST be punished as well as Italians who drive when they are drunk and crash against other cars. You make a mistake, you pay for it. It sounds quite simple, so why does it seem something impossible here?

Good question…

Ok, I will stop now :-)
See you on Monday!

Fourth Skype exchange

Hello everybody!
Here I am again to discuss my fourth Skype meeting which took place on Tuesday afternoon. This week we kept on talking about politics and elections in Italy and USA. Anyway, this time we went deeper into the issues each platform concentrates more on. Sharon asked me some questions about Berlusconi’s and Veltroni’s programs and when we switched to English we had a long conversation about American candidates.

As usual, we started talking in Italian and Sharon wanted to know more about Italy’s biggest problem: tax evasion. I explained her what the different governments tried to do in order to solve it and why the whole situation with taxes is so bad here, although this was quite a difficult issue to talk about. The system is pretty complicated and it was not easy to find the right words to give her an idea of how things work. Anyway, everything went well in the end :-)
We also discussed a little bit about immigration in general: she asked me if we have many immigrants in Italy, where they mostly come from etc…So we anticipated the topic we are supposed to focus on next week…Hope this will not be a problem :-P

As Sarah had asked us I had posted some questions about platforms on the forum, so I started from them when we began to talk in English. I have just answered these questions on our exchange page so I will not repeat the same things here ;-) I can only say that I got more information about American health care system and Sharon confirmed me what Chiara had told us in class.
For those who cannot afford insurance it is extremely expensive to get medical aid. Of course if you need assistance and you are not insured they will not let you die….But then you will have to pay for it for the rest of your life. Even calling an ambulance can cost thousands of dollars. It really sounds quite illogical to me: if I do not have insurance it means I cannot afford it, so how am I supposed to pay this huge amount of money?
Health care is a big problem in America and is a crucial issue in both Hillary’s and Obama’s platforms. The USA have always been well known for its private health care system…Now I am curious to see if things will change with the next president.
We agreed it is a real shame because in America there are a lot of excellent hospitals and doctors, but unfortunately only few people can take full advantage of them. It is absurd, isn’t it?

Ok, see you later for the post about immigration…

Third Skype exchange/Reflective blogging

Hi people!
Here I am again to reflect on my latest Skype meeting :-)

As always, at the beginning we started talking about what we did during the weekend and during class at university. It came as no surprise when Sharon told me that lately they have been focusing a lot on the elections (both in Italy and USA); actually, in these days 90% of the news on TV and magazines are about Obama, Hillary, Veltroni and Berlusconi ;-)
Therefore, it was pretty obvious that the core of our conversation was going to be the elections2008 and political issues in general.

The starting point of our discussion was the impression I had of the so-called political videos. Unfortunately, Sharon had not seen any of them so I more or less repeated what came out on Monday in class.
Then she asked me some questions about the previous Italian government and the candidates who are running for the new office. She told me she heard that Berlusconi has a high probability to win again, although most of the Italians she knows do not like him...(strange, isn't it?) :-)
Anyway, it is always difficult to talk about the political situation in Italy since it is really complicated!

When we moved to English, I asked her for further information about the American electoral system since I had been really struck by the difference between the popular and the electoral vote. In the end, we agreed that the “winner takes all” system might be pretty unfair, but it can be seen as a “necessary evil” to give the country the stability it needs.

As far as similarities are concerned, we noticed that both in the USA and in Italy the key word of these elections is CHANGE. It is clear that in both countries some wrong decisions were taken over the past years and now things cannot remain as they are. The only difference is that Americans still believe that changing is possible, whereas most Italians do not.
This point made me think a lot. Sharon told me that the majority of young people in the US are pretty excited about the elections. They are interested in political events, they try to be well-informed and seem eager to participate actively in their country’s social life.
Sad but true, in Italy is pretty much the contrary. Especially young people are generally disappointed about politics and I am sure many of them are not going to vote this time. I do understand them very well and actually I am also quite unhappy with most politicians (both left- and right-wing). However, I do not think that if you do not vote the situation will get better. And I do think that saying: “I do not care about voting because all politicians are the same” is quite superficial and, after all, not true. Whoever the Prime Minister will be, he/she will not probably be able to solve all Italy’s problems, but I am convinced that different electoral results can have quite different consequences.
Our vote is the only means we have to protect democracy and have our say. It is not much, but we should not forget that many people fought and sometimes died for this right….And in some countries they are still fighting and dying.

In conclusion, let’s spend a few words about our final project. In these months we have been exploring a lot of aspects regarding Italian and American culture, so it is hard to choose just one. I jumped back and read through the questionnaires again to get a clearer idea of what interests me most.
I would really like to learn more about the idea of family Americans generally have. Our peers overseas described American lifestyle as extremely stressful and career-oriented. I also noticed that in "Word Association" none of the Americans associated the words “family” or “mother” to American women.

From all this you might get the impression that nowadays family and children are a little bit in the background in American society. However, I read all the presentations on the Wiki and I saw that most American students have 2-3 brothers or sisters.
Are they just an exception or is the birth rate in the US (despite stress and career) higher than in Europe? Does the State help those women who have a family and a job? (i.e.: are places in nurseries easily available? Can women work part-time?) Do American parents spend a lot of time with their children? Do they think it is important to spend as much time as possible with their children?
I would like to answer these questions and compare the situations in the two countries. I think it could be interesting as the low number of births has been one of the most discussed issues in Italy lately. I wonder if in the US they have this problem as well. If so, I would like to know how they cope with it; if not, I would like to know how they prevented it.

See you on Monday!

YOGA form

Hello!
I have just finished reading and filling out the YOGA form…Wow, I must say I find the topic Intercultural Competence really intriguing! I am happy we are going to deal with it this semester.

As I read through the text, I was pleasantly surprised to notice that many reflections were not new to me. In the form there were some ideas which I had already expressed in the post I wrote on my blog two weeks ago :-)
I was already aware of the importance of Intercultural Competence in today world. I also agree that if you work in an international environment you need to be open-minded and to know how to cope with people with very different ethnic backgrounds. However, as I stated in my post, I am convinced that a whole life is not enough to get to know a culture/language which is not yours. That is why I completely agree with the statement that ICC development has no ending point. You can never consider yourself as “interculturally competent”, so in the end the aim is not KNOWING a foreign country but rather BEING AWARE of what is different there and why. Only if we learn to be critic we will be able to appreciate and accept diversity.

The YOGA form was quite long, so as I went on reading I stumbled across aspects I had never considered before. I am talking for example about the “double-edged” nature of the intercultural experience. It is pretty obvious that competence in another culture and proficiency in its language are part of the same process, but I had never thoroughly reflected on this matter.
I realized that when I talk or write to my foreign friends, I often tend to concentrate more on the language rather than trying to learn something new from them. I mean, I am a student of foreign languages so I just try to jump at any chance I get to speak them. Sometimes when I meet foreign people, practicing my English/German seem more important to me than getting to know their culture. But little by little I am learning that “language and culture are dimensions of each other, interrelated and inseparable”. (This was the sentence which struck me most.)

On the whole, I found the text about Intercultural Competence very interesting, but not so easy to understand, though. There were many specific terms I did not know (i.e.: endeavor, to be germane to etc…) and the concepts were not always straight-forward.
When it came to fill out the form, I had some difficulties as well. To tell the truth, I do not like judging my own competences in general. I may be wrong, but I have always had the impression the others can judge me much better. This was the first time I had to assess my Intercultural Competence and I must say it was a bit awkward to rate myself in such an issue. Actually, I am not sure you can even rate yourself in such an issue… :-)

Anyway, I tried to do my best….And I am eager to see where the YOGA form will lead us :-)

See you soon!

Second Skype exchange

Hi everybody!
Here I am again to discuss about my second Skype meeting.
As I had already talked to Sharon two weeks before, this time I did not feel ‘embarrassed’ at all and I suppose it was the same for her. In fact, we both started talking very spontaneously right from the very beginning.

First of all, she told me about what she did during her spring break and she asked me questions about my week (in Italian).

Then we shifted the focus to the main topic of this week: terrorism. We had a brief discussion about the film Buongiorno, notte! and the so-called ‘years of lead’. I tried to explain her what was going on between the Communist Party and the DC and why these upheavals led to Aldo Moro’s murder. I stressed the relation between what happened in those years and some of the main problems of today Italy; for example, I told her about the big scandal of “Mani Pulite”, in which many politicians, entrepreneurs and judges were involved. The huge debt we have now partially comes from that long period of corruption, although many Italians seem not to realize that.
From here we moved to the present situation: Sharon asked me about the elections (how many parties we have, who the candidates are) and who in my opinion is going to win ;-)
We drew a comparison between Italy and the US, since they are also having elections soon. We tried to figure out what the most important issues are (for the new Government/President): economic growth, health care (mainly in America), immigration (mainly in Italy) and, once again, terrorism.

Afterwards, we switched to English and talked about terrorism in the US and American politics in general.
As is well known, after the terrible events of 9/11th the American government tried to do whatever possible in order to ‘defeat’ terrorism and prevent other attacks to happen. This was President Bush’s main goal when he was reelected for the second time.
Unfortunately, most Americans think that Bush failed in his duty and would like the new President to pull all the troops out of the Iraq. That would probably help American economy bounce back since huge investments have been made in a war which is actually leading to nothing. In addition, people would feel safer and not constantly under threat of terrorist attacks.

As you may notice, in our conversation we did not strictly concentrate on the topic we were supposed to develop.
Last time we were to talk about university life, and so we did. This time it was much more difficult because we felt more confident and at ease; the conversation was very spontaneous so it was harder to stick to one single issue. We started talking about terrorism but then we digressed and talked more about politics and social problems in our countries. I hope the task can be considered fulfilled the same :-) After all, we talked ½ hour in Italian and ½ an hour in English and we learnt something new from each other…This is what counts, isn’t it? :-P

I am really satisfied about how this exchange is going on. We are just at the beginning but I feel we are on the right way. Contributing to the forum is a great chance to get to know something about life overseas and to find out things we do not know about our own country. In fact, when Sarah told us that this week topic would be the ‘years of lead’ and the Red Brigades, I was kind of puzzled. I realized I just had a faint idea of what was going on in those years; unfortunately, we do not usually study this period at school. So it was a great opportunity for me to learn something new about Italian history…I really appreciated it! :-)

See you!!!!

Mid-term paper

Hello everyone!
Before taking these few days off for Easter break, I would like to discuss about the mid-term paper I got back from Sarah two weeks ago.
I had a look at my peers’ works as well, so that I could get a general idea of what people thought about this course.

As regards the content, I was not surprised at all to read that all of us were satisfied and happy with what we did during the first semester. We all wrote more or less the same things and defined this course as informal and thought-provoking…Something pretty different from what we had been used to.

From the point of view of language, the papers were quite different from each other. Some of us used a more formal, some others a more colloquial style.
Although we all have a “bachelor degree” in English and should all be more or less at the same level, I noticed that there are quite big differences among the students.
I am neither a teacher nor a native speaker of English, so it is not my intention to judge anyone, but I must say some papers were much more accurate than others. Some people really came up with original reflections and went deeper into the matters, while others were a little bit superficial and the language was not always appropriate. What’s more, I had the impression that someone concentrated too much on the description of the ”e-tivities” and did not pay enough attention to the learning process (as we were supposed to do).

However, I realized that most of us made the same kind of language mistakes. We still have some difficulties with punctuation and verb tenses. In her comments Sarah often pointed out that we tend to mix verb tenses (simple past and present perfect); for me, after 13 years studying English is still hard to get these two tenses right since we do not have the same distinction in Italian.
In my paper there was also a lack of connectors, whereas some students used them either too often or in the wrong place (i.e.: ‘Moreover’ at the beginning of a new paragraph). In my first posts I used too many connectors, now I have tried to ‘reduce’ them but maybe I am exaggerating too much ;-) I will try to get better in this sense.
Another thing I noticed is that many of us misspell words sometimes. In my paper there are no spelling mistakes just because I always use a spell-checker (even when I am writing in Italian) and I would suggest that my peers should do the same. We all know that English spelling is not a piece of cake (I was also sure it was ’partecipation’ instead of ’participation’ :-/…); thank goodness, technology can help us avoid silly mistakes :-)

On the one hand, I think in my paper there are some mistakes I could (and should) have avoid:

• The repetition of the subject when it is the same in two coordinate sentences (I was told a million times about it…)
• The use of ‘consistent’ instead of ‘significant’ (I should have checked its meaning and thought it might have been a ‘false friend’)
• The use of wrong prepositions (you should always look them up as they can be really different from Italian)

On the other hand, I realized there are things which are not so straight-forward. For instance, although I studied all possible grammar rules about it, I am still not sure about the difference between ’also’ and ’even’. I mean, I do know there is a difference between the two and I think I have understood it, nonetheless when I write the choice does not come so naturally.
The same happens with prepositions sometimes: for example, ’to expect something FROM someone’ and ’to expect something OF someone’ are both possible…I read some sentences and I noticed they are slightly different, however this difference is almost imperceptible to my ’non-native speaker’ ear.
Let’s hope watching films and talking with my Skype-peer and other foreign friends will help me get better from time to time.

Last but not least, I would really like to thank my peers for providing me feedback. They gave me a lot of useful tips and good pieces of advice…Without their help my paper would have been much worse, that’s for sure!

OK, that was long enough ;-)

Happy Easter to everyone!!!!

BYE

Reflecting on "Intercultural competence"...

Hi there!
As the Americans had a few days off for spring break, there will not be a report about my conversation with Sharon this week. So this post is going to be quite different from the previous one ;-)
Today I’d like to concentrate on my personal learning…But not in the same way I did during the last semester. Ok, I’ll explain it better: I do not want to focus on my language skills, but rather on the aspects of America I am learning more about. From the very beginning I liked the idea of getting to know another culture and improving my English at the same time. I must say I was right…so far the exchange has been really stimulating!

Mmm…Intercultural competence…It sounds as something pretty difficult to gain ;-)
I have always thought it is quite hard to become familiar with any culture you did not grow up into. Even though you spend some time abroad, I think your idea of the country you are living in will always be influenced by your own culture. This often prevents you to get a clear and objective view of how things really are.
This is basically what I reflected on after our meeting with Chiara last Monday. And these three weeks working on the Wiki and reading the forum just confirmed this conviction.

I have realized that the world tends to have quite a distorted view of the US. I noticed it also when I was in Germany and had friends of many different nationalities.
On the one hand, some people see America as the country in which everything works perfectly: everyone has a good job, an excellent wage, everything is big, technology is high-developed and the economy is thriving.
On the other hand, some others see America as the root of all evil. They associate this country only with inequity, war, army, disaster and junk food. They think it is impossible to find something positive in this culture.
As regards my personal opinion and experience, I must confess it is hard not to be influenced at all by one of these two (extreme) views. To tell the truth, I used to be quite critical towards American society sometimes and I often wondered how Americans could be so presumptuous and think they were “the best“. These months spent with Sarah and the meeting with Chiara proved that American people are much more critical towards their own society as I actually thought.
Americans ARE NOT Bush (and Bush does not represent ALL Americans) ;-)

I really liked the discussion with Chiara last week since we stressed both the positive and the negative aspects of the US. It was made clear that both countries could learn a lot from each other.

As it came out in a discussion last semester, we (Italians and Europeans in general) seem to import only the worst things frm America...That is a real shame, and there is nobody but ourselves to blame.

So, after all it is always the same old story…you cannot judge something you really do not know.

See you next week

First Skype exchange

Hi everybody!

It has been quiet on this blog lately, but now…Welcome back :-)
Yesterday afternoon I had my first Skype meeting with Sharon, a first-year student of Biochemistry at Dickinson College.
A new exciting experience has begun… :-) Thank God I was already familiar with “Skype” since I have been using it regularly for the last two years. So in this post there won’t be a tedious description of a mysterious technology I had to learn to cope with…;-)
Anyway, I must confess I was pretty nervous while I was waiting for Sharon to call me. In “Skype” I usually talk with people I know, so the idea of having a conversation with someone I had never met before sounded a little bit weird to me. Fortunately, I felt at ease from the very beginning.

Before talking about our different school systems (that was what we were supposed to do), we both introduced ourselves (in Italian). Sharon has been studying Italian for four years because she loves our language and country. She would like to visit Italy one day and meet her relatives who live in Molise. Dickinson students are going to have spring break next week and Sharon is spending these days in New Jersey with her family.
I asked her some general questions about American school system: she told me they start university when they are 18 and it usually takes them 3-4 years to graduate. In the US the high school lasts four years and there they study a lot of subjects (as we do). In each State the education system is more or less the same, but some differences can be noticed between public and private schools.

Then we switched into English and talked about the importance of studying abroad. She asked me if we have exchange programs and I told her about my Erasmus experience. We reflected on the fact that spending some time in a foreign country enables us to become more broad-minded. We both seemed to appreciate multicultural environments where you meet different cultures and ways of living.
We also discussed about university life; I explained that in Italy we do not have a campus with dorms but we usually live with our families or share apartments with other students. That is quite different from the USA, where most students leave their home towns to go to university. We came up with the conclusion that both living in the campus and with your family has its pros and cons.
Sharon had me notice that when you all live very close to each other it is much easier to form deep friendships. Your peers become your family while you are away from home, so it is often at university that you meet your “best friends”. I realized that myself when I lived in a student hall during my Erasmus. I feel here it is the other way round (at least for me); we attend the same lectures, we go for a coffee or have lunch together but in the evening (or at the weekend) most of us come back to their own home and life. I think this way you meet a lot of nice people but it is quite tough to become close friends.
On the other hand, it is not always easy for American students to live so far away from their families for such a long time.

My impression of this first Skype exchange is absolutely positive and I really hope it will go on like this. I am convinced this is a great opportunity we just cannot miss!

Bye!

Feedback

Hi people!

How are you doing? Are you enjoying your holidays? Are you ready to begin the new year? :-)

Today I checked my feeds after quite a long time and I visited our course blog again...I read Sarah's message about our mid-term paper once more and I thought that I would really like to get your feedback before sending my work to her (that was actually her suggestion, too).

It would be great if you could spend a few minutes reading through it and then give me your opinion; if so, just reply to this post with your email address and I will send you the file (I still do not know when exactely, I have not finished it yet.. :-P)

If you think you need some feedback as well, do not hesitate to ask me and I will be glad to help you.

THANKS A LOT!

See you soon

Happy New Year!!!