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!!

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!

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