ICC

Here we are again making another introspective analysis. The seff-assesment of our intercultural competences is undoubtedly useful to cast up accounts after this english course. The five elements that make up the ICC are 1attitudes, 2knowledge, 3skills of interpreting and relating; 4skills of discovery and interaction and 5critical cultural awareness/political education. Thanks to the various activities that we developed during this two semesters, we actually improved in some way each of this 5 aspects of the ICC. Obviously, each of us feels differently towards what we have been doing but anyway I think that none of us can deny the utility of this course. As all the reflective activities, this has been quite difficult or better, let’s say time demanding. One again I ‘m here, sitting down in front of my PC trying to make a self evaluation of my language learning skills.
I can say that has a been a great english course, funny and interesting; maybe the stranger but also the most effective one! Several are the aspects of this course that I really appreciate and felt comfortable with. As a matter of fact, the most important aim of a language is to communicate and during this months we surely communicate a lot: we wrote assays, we spoke with our course mates, we made blog posts, we took part in online forums, we created a wiki page, we spoke through skype with American friends… We actually experimented the most various ways to express our feelings, ideas and points of view. But there is also a reverse of the medal; as a matter fact, following day by day all the activities and tasks, remaining up loaded with everything, taking constantly part to the on line forums and working on the final project together with my peers, both American and Italian, have been tiring! We were supposed to work a lot both in class, during lessons, and at home and I must confess that I made great efforts in order to do everything respecting the deadlines!
Now this course it’s almost at the end and I can say that despite all this hard work, I feel enriched and more open minded than before. I learned a lot of new and interesting things about American’s school system, politics and point’s of view and I found out that conversations are the best sources of information. Nothing can be more effective than something told by a friend or a peer! Well, also on line and written sources can be useful of course, and in blogs, web sites and wiki pages you can find really a great amount of information. But testimonies and real evidences given by friends or person in flesh and blood are different. My own dictionary grow a lot during this course and I learned a many words and expressions dealing with the different topics and issues we developed. Consequently, also my listening reading and writing skills have improved. It’s all a vicious circle: the more you read, write and speak, the more you learn!

Hello!

This Wednesday we started talking about the topic of our final project. So, new groups and new peers. I have to confess that we all had many different ideas about interesting topic to develop but then we had to choose just one. We explained to our American colleague Ashley our ideas, and voila, thanks to her opinion we made the choice. We decided to analyse the situation of pregnant women’s at work place and their rights. Even though we are quite young women, and we are not actually think about having a family (or at least this is my situation) we do agree that this is something that will surely touch our lives in a close future.
The conversation went on talking about the channels throw which communicate in order to realize, practically, our project and, actually, the wiki page, skype and the e mails have been designated!
We really had many things to talk about, and it has been a pity that our peer had to leave the conversation a little bit earlier; anyway, we went on planning the work for this week and deciding some deadlines to find the material and information.
Now, a week of research in waiting for us!

This week skype xchange has been quite difficult because of some technological problems with the pc and the microphones, so we actually waste a lot of time trying to establish a connection with our American peers! Moreover many of us, and many Americans too were absent so groups and couples were different. In my group we were 4 plus a colleague from Dickinson…what a mess! Anyway, we went on speaking about politics, candidates and who is probably going to win here and overseas. I discovered that in the USA, there are people who go to schools and Universities to explain to the students the different ideas and programs of the candidates and I do actually think that this is a very nice enterprise. I mean, schools and University should be kind of neutral but one of education’s aim should be that of create capable and careful citizens. As matter of fact, young people may not be interested in politics at all, or they can often be too lazy in order to find out helpful information which can facilitate them in deciding who to vote for. For that reason, informing boys and girls it’s a very good idea. I also asked to my peer what about Obama girls’ songs…Lol! She told me that this is not a real group but we agreed about the fact that this videos are quite funny and mocking. She also told me that she saw the videos about Berlusconi and Walter which are on our course blog. As far as our peer said, it sounds as if Berlusconi is the only Italian politician well known …What a bad image we have got around the world!!
Speaking about politics and elections, which are the outstanding topics in this period, Sarah asked us to express our ideas about immigration and consequently the relevant problem of the voting right for the immigrants! As a matter of fact, every country follows its immigration policy, and citizenship is the goal to reach which confers duties and rights among which there is also the right to vote. As far as Italy is concerned, the article 48 of our Constitution, sanctions that the persons entitled to vote are those over 18 and with Italian citizenship. Thus, the origin of all the troubles is the Suffrage-the right- to vote which generally derives from citizenship…So, the main point is how to get citizenship! European foreign residents, even though they are not Italian, can vote here in Italy, while others, non-Europeans, did not. Thus the problems deals with the foreign and extra-communitarians which are regularly established in the national territory. In fact, those people are not allowed to vote and any change in order to allow them to vote, would imply a constitutional amendment. The situation in the other European countries is quite different, in many of them, like Ireland, Swedish, Denmark, Holland, Luxemburg and others, the criteria is easier. An immigrant has got to demonstrate that he/she is living in the country, that he/she establish and after some month (6 month in Ireland) or years (3 years in Swedish) they obtain the right to vote.
But here in Italy everything’s complicated. It seems like Italy forgot its past, as a matter of fact, some time ago Italy was a country of emigrants, whereas now it has become a country of immigration. Nowadays, there are around 3 million immigrants living regularly in Italy (ISTAT 2006 estimate), making up 5% of the total population. Caritas suggest that 3.7 million migrants live in Italy but still there are many undocumented immigrants which live in very poor and often unhealthy conditions. Even though immigration is a reality here in Italy, we still haven’t got a good strategy to face this phenomena! From one point of view there is no doubt about the fact that we need immigration! Immigration brings here manpower and often, immigrants do all the jobs that Italians don’t want to do anymore, immigrants do care our elders and contribute to the increasing of births. But from another point of view, immigration raise a lot of problems about social aspect of life as economy, welfare, education, heath care, prostitution, crime and human rights.
Personally, I think that Immigration and the voting right are serious political issue in this period of election and the debate is really fervent because it touches many aspect of our social and political sphere. There is not a univocal solution to this problem, and the way is still long. Let’s hope that the commonsense and the integration would prevail!!

Last Wednesday I was not in Padua and so again no skype exchange for me. I actually went to Gorizia because a friend of mine got graduated…Lucky her!
For this reason I have nothing to write about the exchange and so I had a look at the online forum to see what’s going on there, and I found very interesting topics of conversation!
The first which attract my attention, deals with something which, to me, marks a very big gap between Italy the USA: the death penalty. Here in Italy we have got many problems like the corruption, the mafia, “le raccomandazioni”, the Church interferences but, luckily, here we don’t have the death penalty. Reading my peers comments, I saw that we do all agree about the fact that the death penalty is something awful, unjust and that goes against all the basic human rights. As far as the justice is concerned, it seems that Italy and the USA are at two extreme poles: on one hand, as Stella said, here in Italy the penalty are often inadequate and thus people do not pay for the crimes committed; on the other had, overseas, the capital penalty may kill people who are just alleged criminals. So, here in Italy everything seems to be quite free, the justice is slow and complicated. In some way you can feel free to do what you want because the worst penalty that you can get is a sentence to life imprisonment (20 or 30 years) but to tell the truth there are often discounts, reduction and if you’re really lucky even an “indultino”! Opposed is the situation in the States, where people run the risk to be killed even if the are innocent because the death penalty does not allow any afterthought.
Personally, I think that every Nation has got its big troubles and issues to face, and even if here in Italy the justice may not offer safety and protections to its citizens, I am very happy that death penalty it’s not in use. No one has got the right to decide about the life of the other people! To kill a criminal it is not a good and democratic solution at all!
Oh, I forget, we are supposed to start thinking about our final project…this means that our course is almost over…L! During this months we analysed a lot of cultural aspects and we actually found out not only differences but also similarities between us and our American peers. Now it’s time to clear up my mind and decide to concentrate on one of the aspects which has particularly struck me…The problem is to take a decision! Right now I am a little bit confused, I have such a big amount of information in my mind that I don’t know how to organize it! I hope to wake up on Monday morning with some clearer ideas about my final project…You know what!? The night is the mother of counsel!

let's yoga!

This week: Yoga!
Nowadays, the ability to deal with the diversity is ever growing. We actually live in a global world and we daily face the “different”. That’s why intercultural competencies and language proficiencies are very important. We are often afraid of the unknown and we don’t know how to behave and how to create a relationship with something that is new to us. Therefore, the development of competences in another culture and proficiency in its language becomes essential in our society in order to live without being frightened of the others, to enrich ourselves with new values and broaden our knowledge. Moreover, intercultural competences provide the opportunity for powerful reflections on our own native world view. In fact, as the Chinese philosopher Chung Tzu says: “looking in is looking out”. The ICC, intercultural communicative competence, is in fact a life-long process which enables us to understand better ourselves as subjects living in net of relationships.
One of the tools we can use to measure our ICC is the Yoga form. The term “YOGA” stands for “your Objectives, Guidelines, and Assessment” and it is divided into5 sections which are awareness, attitudes, skills, knowledge and proficiency, obviously in the host tongue.
This kind of test can be used as a self evaluating guide, useful to examine the development of our ICC.
As far as I am concerned, I filled in the form thinking about Spanish, which is the language I have studied better in my life, thanks to the Erasmus project. Actually, I only considered the first two levels of each sections (Educational Traveller and Sojourner) because I still haven’t got any professional or serious working experience.
I have never heard about this kind of Yoga before, this is one of the great amount of new tools discovered during this English course with Sarah; although we already had others occasions to reflect about our competences like for example with the PLE map, I think that this is a less free way to do it; actually, there are “strict” assessment to rate from 0 to 5, and this is surely a very objective way to assess. However, there is something new, a very interesting suggestion: “After doing so, it is useful to have a native of the host culture rate you as well”…This would be great! In this way we could have an idea of our ICC degree from an other point of view!
C U!

hello!

After the enthusiasm of the first skype xchange, the second conversation with my peer turned out to be much more difficult. This time my Italian class mate was speaking with someone else, so I was alone chatting with Corina. This would not have been a problem if the subjects we touched during the conversation would be familiar to me. My American colleague started asking to me what about the Italian government and the political scene…What!!?!? I mean, came on! Maybe I found the question very difficult because I almost hate politics and I actually don’t know anything about it apart from the fact that on the 13 of April we are going to vote! I know that this lack on information it’s my fault, but anyway this is not a trial. The only thing I can say is that I really didn’t know what to tell her! I surely going to inform myself before the elections…Anyway, I guess I cut a poor figure also because my peer is really fond of politics! She saw that I was a little bit in difficulty, so she told me a lot of things about the American elections and the various candidates explaining me very well what’s going on in her Country. We also spoke about Spitzer’s scandal and the insane world of the politicians. We agreed about the fact that they all seems to be free to do what the want and even if the make some kind of mistake they won’t pay for it! Speaking of corruptions we also spoke about those concept published on Cultura which are “raccomandato” and “meritocrazia”. Hard stuffs! I explained to her the difference between saying “it recommend quell professone” and “quell prof è un raccomandato” or at least I tried! I hope she understand me! I tell her that if the principle of “meritocrazia” is not in force, a “raccomandazione” is useful to obtain what you want, it is a kind of shortcut.
Apart from the problems concerning the political topics, I can undoubtedly say that this exchange is great! I love speaking English! At school we are often exposed to mother tongue speakers, but actually they are teachers and speaking with guys of almost our same age is completely different!
I want to add something about the conversations in Italian…Because half of the time we are supposed to speak in Italian, right?! Well, it is actually hard to have dialogue! I don’t know very well what to do…is it fine to skip this part? I mean, I have noticed that for our peers is very difficult to speak in Italian, so they often start in a language and than change as soon as they don’t know what to say. I guess, they should take all the time that they need in order to explain themselves, even thought this is hard! Let’s see what will happen next Wednesday!
See u soon!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter

to you all!!!

Just relax and have fun!