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!!