End of the exchange...

As I said in class and also on my ICC questionnaire, I really enjoyed the experience of an exchange with students from another continent. I noticed many differences between us and them, first of all the difference of age! It is not simple at all to talk to people who are four or five years younger than you and are not as involved in the project. I have discovered only yesterday that they were supposed to work at their Italian course and also do the exchange with us! I thought that they simply had very little interest in us, but I must admit that an exchange is very time-demanding if you are dealing both with it and with another course.
Anyway I have been very lucky: my American peers were interesting people and they were very different to each other! I had fun talking to them, mainly because I also perceived our conversation as a small preview of my future! As a matter of facts, I am an intercultural mediator, so I am supposed to communicate with people and make sure that we agree on something very precise!
I am sorry for those who did not enjoy this experience because of a lazy partner or misunderstandings in their group… I hope they will have another opportunity which will teach them as much as this experience has taught to me!

Anna ^_^

Final Project!

Last Tuesday I talked to Allyson about immigration and our final project. By the way, I'm sorry I didn't post anything about this topic, by I totally forgot about it! I'm really sorry!
Anyway, I think immigration is such a wide and "common" topic that everybody know something about it!

As I just said, the first part of our conversation was about immigration. Allyson answered very kindly to our questions and she told me interesting things I didn't know! For example, I had no idea that a politicians in the US has had the idea to build a wall at the border with Mexico to avoid illegal immigration! It's totally absurd!

American people seem to be more tolerant with immigrants... Is it really true? I don't really believe that everybody loves immigrants and believes them a resource... They surely are good for a country, but not all of them! I mean, criminals, lazy people and those who think that they will find a beatiful and easy life just stepping into our country should stay home! And I think the same about Italians that are like them! When I used to attend high school I had to leave home at 6.30 in the morning and everyday I saw people who were waiting for the bus to go to work. I appreciate those men and women, and I think that they should live here and have a good life, because they work hard for it! This is only my feelings about the topic...We didn't really have a discussion about it!

After Enrico joined the conversation, we takled about our final project! I'm really excited for it! We created a blog where we can post our questions, proposals, ideas and so on without worrying about the differences of time or place! I really appreciate it! I hope we will be able to do a good job...

Anna

Discussion on Politics

Last Tuesday I had a very interesting talk with Kristen, Marina and Laura about politics. I was surprised to hear that Kristen was so interested and also sure about American politicians! I mean, she perfectly knows how elections work and what differenciates the candidates! So I "exploited" the situation to understand it too.

Maybe American people are more involved in politics, also because of the very long political propaganda... So I was surprised to hear Kristen talking so much, without embarassment and pauses! It has been very nice, I asked her many questions and she answred precisely. Thank you again! I also discovered that the majority of young people in this course are not really fans of Berlusconi... So, why does he always have an important role in our government? I think I'm partially wrong about him, also because if so many people vote for him, there should be a good reason...

What has also surprised me, was to hear that people in the US don't even know who Berlusconi is! So... he did so much for the caro amico Bush and American people don't know about his existence... It must be frustrating! Kristen also told me that they were afraid of Prodi winning the election, because he was more interested in strenghtening the relations with Europe than with the US! Funny, isn'it?

My conclusion is that Italians are so frustrated, disgusted and also disenchanted towards politics that the majority of them (of us) don't consider politics worthy of concern... So sad!

New Skype partner!

On the last Skype exchange I was supposed to talk to Ugo as usual. Unfortunately he was not in class, so we had to join some other group! I'm sorry with Federico and Marina, it has been pretty hard to talk with four people together!!

Anyway, it has been very interesting to talk with another American student! Kristen has finally explained clearly to me how exactly do Elections in the US work: I was sure that the President had to be chosen between Hillary and Obama (It's funny to notice that they call Hillary by her first name and Obama by last name! Maybe it's only in order not to confuse her with her husband, but I think that it can also be because she is a woman...). On the contrary, the Americans are now voting for the so-called primaries, in which they should elect their favourite who will "fight" against McCain! I'm so tired about all the Italian politican campaign, but what about these poor Americans?! Their new president will be known only in November! It's such a long time...

This is the most interesting thing I came to know during our conversation. I think that our difficulties came from the fact that there were too many people talking together, so it was not quite clear which our topic was! Next week I hope to hear Ugo again, if he will wake up on time :p! These Americans are always tired... Is it so strange to have lesson at 8.30 in the morning?

At the beginning of the exchange I came to think that it would have been more interesting to change our Skype partner every week, so that we could have talked to more people and maybe we could have had the possibility to know different people. I mean, are all the students in Dickinson as tired and friendly as Ugo and so giggly and beautiful as Kristen? But this week I understood that, even though it would have been nice from the point of view of personal knowledge, it woud also be very repetitive from the point of view of contents! Our question in the first meeting with a new person are more or less always the same! So... I'm waiting for next week! ^_^

Intercultural Communicative Incompetence

Task 4 was about ICC or Intercultural Communicative Comepetence: why did I wrote the word Incompetence as a title for this post? Well... After five years spent studying foreign languages and cultures I thought I would have had something similar to Intercultural competence! But, as I found out while answering the questionnaire, I really don't possess that specific competence!

What I mean is not that I am totally unaware of the differences between two or more cultures, on the contrary! As a matter of facts my levels of awareness and attitude are good, even though I didn't always consider Level III (Professional) and Level IV (Intercultural/Multicultural Specialist) because I don't have working experiences abroad, nor I have made an Erasmus project.

What surprises me more is the enormous difference between Intercultural Skills or Knowledge and Language Proficiencies! I mean, my Intercultural Knowlegde is insignificant, while I think to be good enough in speaking!

I don't feel very happy about the results... It seems to me that all the years spent on books were unuseful! But I must admit that before doing my ICC test I have never seriously thought about what really Intercultural Competence is and how much important it is! So, as we Italian say, non tutto il male vien per nuocere! It's not too late to improve and to acquire this new tool that can help us to know different people and to respect them as much as possible!

Anna

Nice party in New York!

Second Skype-meeting... The topic of the discussion was terrorism and the Anni di Piombo in Italy. On Monday I surfed the Internet to find information about it and I also wrote it on a paper in order to be able to answer to every question! However, Ugo did not agree with the topic so we kept on talking about his spring break and the parties he had while in New York... It is interesting to talk to a boy who doesn't really care about such an important matter! I mean, he comes from New York, he lives very close to Ground Zero, and he really doesn't care about it!! Or better, he seems not to care... Enrico, the guy who was supposed to talk with us, tried many times to go back to the main topic, with no result... So we all had an interesting discussion about the campus, episodes of violence in it and about the differences between Dickinson and New York! It has been very instructive! And I also learnt that discos and pubs in the US are as expensive as here and they seem to be more or less as ours :p!

Padova -Dickinson

A new semester has begun and I welcome the new "e-tivities"!

Our first task is to write our impressions about the first Skype exchange with the Dickinson's students! Well, the beginning has been so embarassing... My Ugo boy (please call me Ugo and not Hugo :p!) is a so very American 18 years old guy that I was really surprised! How could it be that all the stereotypes I have in my mind are mixed in just one person?! His way of speaking, his clothes, his face, his way of moving, everything!! I was so shocked that it took me a couple of minutes to say something more "clever" than "Hello... ehm.... ciao?"! By the way, I was lucky enough that the other girl who was going to talk with us did not simply stay there with the microphone without saying nothing!

After this dreadful beginning things went on better. Ugo seems to be quite a nice guy, we talked a lot about the differences between our and his universities and also about the cities we live in. He has Italian parents and talks very well in Italian!

I think we have been talking for half an hour, maybe more, but I didn't really notice the passing of time! I had great fun and I really appreciated this possibility of talking in English with a native speaker! Maybe next time we will change our American partner, so that we will have the possibility to know the other students too!

Merry Woman's Day!

Merry Christmas!!

Hi everybody!! I want to wish you a merry Christmas, full of joy and love!

Anna

E-tivity 9 - Learning is a PLEasure

I have to say that this is the first time I’m seriously reflecting on how and how much I’m actually learning English. I was surely aware of the fact that only a very low percentage of what I learnt at school or at the university is fixed into my brain! Anyway I didn’t imagine how much of my knowledge came from those silly things I do every day! For example, do you know what a screwdriver is? I didn’t until I discovered it during a match on a point & click game!

Of course this is not enough… I have to keep studying, reading and discovering new things such as words, slangs, fixed expressions, and more! In other words, I need to regularly update my PLE! By the way, what do you think of it? I found it quite easy to create, maybe because I don’t do that much in order to improve my English :p!!

My PLE consists of two macro cathegories: formal (university, tools and job) and informal (fun and contacts). Even if the second has only two cathegories, it cointains more topics! This is a clear demonstration of the greater amount of informal information I discover ever day! The only thing I don't appreciate in FreeMind is the lack of the possibility to link words which belong to another cathegory... What do you think?

Good luck to everybody for Monday’s speech!!!
Anna