Intercultural exchange

Hello!

Well, we are at the end of the course… What a pity! :(

During this semester I enjoyed very much the intercultural exchange! Unfortunately ,I was in the group which was supposed to do the exchange with Poznan but it didn’t work. So, we Skyped only three times! However, with this exchange we had the possibility to know Rocio, a Spanish girl who is in Dickinson for one year ,as a teacher assistant. I think she spoke very good English, even if her pronunciation was typically Spanish.

In our talks we spoke a lot about College life in Dickinson and University life in Padua, which was the topic of our final project. I reconsider my own culture as far as concerning university life. For example, in Padua we give a lot of importance to meet ourselves on Wednesday. It’s cool because it’s like a sort of tradition; every week we go out and we meet always the same people. While, I recognized that Americans students don’t have a typical day in which they join together during the week.
I felt comfortable when I spoke about University life in Padua. I had to say a lot of things about it! I don’t know why but I was very proud to describe our University lifestyle; especially the “spritz hour” on every Wednesday.

I learned a lot of things about life at school. Firstly, American students live in the campus and all their scholastic and extra-scholastic activities take place within the college and the campus: as a consequence, even parties will take place in the campus. Secondly, American students have fraternities and sororities. Outside the US these college organisations are quite rare.In Italy they doesn’t exist at all. Speaking with our peer, it emerged that the overall impression of Italian students on fraternities has been distorted by the great amount of movies and TV-movies which are broadcasted in Europe. These movies succeeded in conveying the idea that being part of such membership is the best way to enjoy college; moreover, it may help you gaining respect and getting privileges. Our partner pointed out that to have real fun at college, it is not necessary to join one of these fraternities and sororities, which are actually not appreciated by international students. They are perceived as “communities within a community” and students decide to join them otherwise they wouldn’t have good friends in the campus.
Moreover, I understood that The American University system is better organized than the Italian system. American students are more comfortable than Italians because they study in campus, so they don’t need to walk around the city to go to lesson.

I tried to explain to our peer the difference between the South and the North of Italy. We talked about “mafia”. I tried to explain her that this minority of people is the major cause of backwardness of the South. However, this region has to be consider for its artistic beauty and wonderful landscapes. So, I tried to convince her to see the South not just as the place of “Mafiosi”. In other words, I tried to avoid the common prejudice of “mafiosi”, which foreigners always attribute to those people who live in the South.

With this exchange I improve my pronunciation of some words such as: “scientific”; “culture”; “medieval”; “undoubtedly”. Moreover, I tried to improve my intonation of other words, such as: “secretary”; “bye”; “interests”. So, I think I became a little more quickly to understand people speaking in English and American. While with non-native speakers I spoke Italian very slowly, trying to articulate sounds and words in a very clear way.

Finally, doing the wiki project I learned new words, such as bagel ( a ring-shaped bread roll); sorority ( a society of female university or college students); beer-pong (a table of ping pong where they play different games and when somebody loses they have to drink); and so on. Moreover, I tried to improve my academic style of writing, focusing my attention on my usual mistakes, such as verb tenses and the use of preposition.

Ok, that's all folks!!

Skype exchange!

Hi everybody!

On Wednesday, I finally Skype with the other members of my group! It has been a very funny and interesting experience. I've never used this tool before; I think it is a great way to communicate with people who are abroad because it is free! I mean, of course you must have the Internet connection...

Well, our peer is a Spanish girl, whose name is Rocio and she is in Dickinson for one year. At the beginning, we thought her name was Rachele, because we had this name written on the table; however, as soon as she started speaking we realized that she wasn't American. Her accent was typically Spanish! We introduced ourselves and then we started talking about immigration (as we were supposed to). As far as she wasn't American, she spoke about immigration from her point of view. So, we couldn't have general information about how is immigration in U.S.A.; she spoke about the closed reality of the college and she said something about her country.

Finally, for our final project we decided to make a comparison between the university life in Padua and in Dickinson's college. We thought it was the best choice because our peer is Spanish and she couldn't gave us opinions about topics such as death penalty or education in U.S.A..

See you!

Final project!

Hi!!

Well, in the final project I would like to focus on death penalty. I know that is a very delicate topic but I’m curious to know what the Americans think about it. I’m completely against the death penalty because I think it doesn’t solve any problems to apply it; furthermore, I think that killing a murderer is the worst way to explain someone who had done something wrong. I think that to put someone into jail for the rest of his/her life would be enough. In my opinion, if someone is deprived of his/her freedom he had already received a strict punishment. In Italy the problem is that when someone is jailed for 30 years for example, he will never pass all this period in prison. Certainly, he will sent out of prison after 10 years because he had a good behavior… it’s incredible but it always happens! So, I would like to know what Americans think about death penalty and if they think it really reduces crimes.

See you!

Elena

The political campaign goes on...

Dear all, we are still speaking about elections…To be sincere, I’m getting more and more disappointed by the Italian political campaign; I mean, politicians are becoming ridiculous just to get some votes. I saw the two videos of “Pdl” and “Berlusconi presidente”, I felt so embarrassed to be Italian. It seemed a satire! I really don’t know how people could have shot those videos… On 13th April we have to vote but I really don’t know what to do. I don’t know what would be the best thing to do: if I don’t go to vote, I wouldn’t participate to the political life of my country; while, if I go to vote, I wouldn’t know what to vote. What a mess!!! :(

I think politicians are all the same here in Italy: they are marvelous speakers but when they should do what they promised, they do nothing. In this political campaign, the right and the left are fighting as if they were in a football match. Once again, politicians are demonstrating how liars they are; I refer to Veltroni. At the beginning of the campaign, he said that he wouldn’t criticize his rival Berlusconi, while now, every day we are faced with some stupid quarrels between them. Yesterday, the “big problem” was that Veltroni refused to go to speak to “Porta a Porta”; this is a television program directed by Bruno Vespa (a Berlusconi’s supporter) on a local channel (RAI). For a reason of “par condicio” Berlusconi wasn’t allowed to go to this TV program, so he start saying that RAI continues to manipulate the elections and so on…

I think that if politicians continue to focus on such stupid quarrels they won’t be helpful to our country, which now is passing a very difficult period.

Well, as you can notice, in my post I focused on Italian elections; I thought that it wasn’t necessary to speak about American elections because we already spent a lot of time writing on it on the Wiki.

See you on Monday!

Something more about the elections!

Hi girls!!

Well, for this activity I focused on three newspapers: “New York Times”, “El Paìs” and “Corriere della Sera”. I analized these newspapers for three days, trying to compare how they treat the same news. Let’s have a look to what I found!

From New York Times:

Obama Rejects Idea of Back Seat on Ticket (11th March)
In this article Mrs. Clinton and her husband , former president Bill Clinton, tell the voters in Missisipi that Senator Barack Obama would make a fine partner on the Democratic ticket. Obama affirmed that the Clintons were being duplicitous in their offer; they said that on one hand he was not ready to be president, but that on the other, he could solve the party’s political impasse by joining together. He said: “I don’t know how somebody who’s in second place can offer the vice presidency to someone who’s in first place.”. As the crowd cheered, he said: “If I’m not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president? Do you understand that?”. Then he listed all his victories and he underlined his advantage towards Mrs. Clinton.

Democrats in a Fight to Define ‘Winner’ (12th March)
In this article it is explained how Mrs. Clinton and Obama are battling to define what it means to be winning. Mr. Obama is emphasizing his lead in the popular vote and in pledged delegates and his victories in states that Democrats have trouble carrying in general elections; Mrs. Clinton has focused on her victories in states with the most Electoral College votes, like Ohio and California, and her strength among groups like women, blue-collar workers and Hispanics.

Democrats Face Racial Issue Again (13th March)
In this article comes out the problem of race during elections; it refers to Geraldine A. Ferrero, the Democratic resigned from the campaign after being criticized by Mr. Obama’s advisers, among others, for her recent comments that “if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position” as a leading presidential contender. Mrs. Clinton called it regrettable but did not take any action. Mr. Obama said he did not believe that there was “a directive in the Clinton campaign saying, ‘Let’s heighten the racial elements in the campaign.’ I certainly wouldn’t want to think that.” “I don’t want to deny the role of race and gender in our society,” he said. “They’re there, and they’re powerful. But I don’t think it’s productive."

As you can notice, in New York Times the articles about American elections are very detailed; what is more, they develop a lot of topics related to the elections, such as the problem of race or the strategies adopted by the two candidates. In this newspaper there are also a lot of videos or links about the elections and the candidates in particular.

From El Paìs.COM:

Obama and Clinton compete in Missisipi (11th March)
This article concearns the same topic of the New York Times' article on 11th March but it stresses the fact that in Missisipi Obama has more possibilities to win than Mrs. Clinton.

Obama win and he steps up his advantage in Missisipi (12th March)
This Spanish newspaper focuses on the winnings of Obama in Missisipi and it emphasizes the fact that he is ahead of Mrs.Clinton; moreover, it reports the speech in which Obama said that he would never be the vice president.

A democratic assessor of Clinton resigned for ratial comments against Obama (13th March)
This article treats the problem of race as New York Times did; moreover, it says that this great historic possibility which was represented by the competitiveness between both the first women and the afroamerican, who could go to the White House, it is becoming a terrible obstacle for Country's unity. It is proved by the elections' results in Missisipi: Obama got 90% of vote from black people and Clinton got the 70% of vote from white people.

The articles I read in El Paìs are very similar to those ones written in New York Times; obviously, the Spanish newspaper treat the same topics in a less detailed way than New York Times.

Then I tried to find in Corriere della Sera the same articles which I found both in New York Times and El Paìs but I couldn’t find them. In Corriere della Sera, in the link called “international” there were just these articles:

• Washington, the “sin city” of politicians, the New York’s Governor Spitzer in trouble. (11th March)

• Spitzer resignation (12^th March)
  
• No connection with Al Quaeda-Saddam. (13^th March)

So, I noticed that Corriere della Sera gives not so much importance to United States as El Paìs do; the former is more focused on Italy. It seems that this Italian newspaper is more interested in American gossip, such as Spitzer’s sex scandal than the elections.

That's all girls!!

See you on Monday!!

Elections!

Hi girls!

Well, I watched some videos about the political campaign in the United States and in Italy; I focused on the PD and Obama/Clinton. As far as concerning Clinton, I watched the video in which Hillary closes at the Presidential Debate in Texas; she was asked to describe the moment in her life when she was tested the most. She spoke about some survivors of the war in Iraq, who came back home without a leg or with their faces disfigured by fire; she said that her problems were nothing compared to what these people had experienced during the war. Then, she finished her speech saying that she was honored to be there with Barak Obama and whatever happens, they’re going to be fine; they had strong support from their families and their friends. I think that Hillary appears very self-confident, smiling, happy, friendly, kind, pragmatic and competent. It seems that she keeps the situation under control and she isn’t scared by her rival Obama at all.

Then, I watched Obama’s speech in San Antonio; his language seemed very influential and created a collective emotiveness. He said to give young people a reason to vote; to inspire a nation to come together; he repeated a lot of times the words: hope, nation, one people, safe, country, young men, dream, democracy. He made people believe in themselves ( “we were told that we were naïf, that we couldn’t change the world as it is, but then a few people stood up and said: yes we can”/ “…because of you, because of a movement you built, we can stand up and clearly say that we can write the next chapter in American story”); he made a lot of repetitions and rhetorical questions such as, “the world is watching what we do here, the world is paying attention to how we conduct ourselves; what we say? How it treats one another? What will they see? What will we tell them? What will we show them?”; in this way Obama excites the audience who answers with a great applause. Barak finished his speech with a very optimistic message: “United States of America is and always will be the last best hope on heart, we say, we hope, we believe, yes we can! Thank you San Antonio, God bless America. I appreciate.”. I think that with these words people came back home more serene, reassured and hopeful towards the future of America.

As far as concerning Veltroni, he reminded me Barak Obama…I mean, the way he talked to the audience, the rhetoric and the strong interest towards young people, were very similar to Obama’s way of speaking. Veltroni , as Obama, tried to make people believe in themselves and in politicians; he spoke about the renew of the Italian politics and trust towards the Country, which at the same time has to trust in its citizens. Furthermore, he focused on the development of the enterprise and the connection between work and enterprise.

Finally, I think these three politicians have an informal behavior towards the audience, they are very smiling, optimistic and rhetoric. What is more, they show themselves very self confident and they are sure of their future success. I noticed one difference in particular between American and Italian elections; in the former the audience seemed to be more motivated by the politicians, while in the latter it appeared more quiet... maybe Italian electors are more discouraged than Americans.

Ok, that's all! See you tomorrow!

Bye!!

My personal learning environment

Hi girls!

Yesss!!!I got it!! I was able to design a map of my personal learning environment using Free mind! Firstly, I thought about all the sources I used to learn English; secondly, I divided these sources in four categories, which are: tools, places, people and experiences. I think it was funny and interesting to do this activity. Above all, I focused on my past experiences; they helped me to learn English as a language but also as a culture; I mean, I learnt a lot about this language and its culture, thanks to studying holidays and travel exchanges. I’m sure that the best and quickly way to learn English is to go abroad. In this way, you are completely plunged into the language and every day you learn something more!

As far as people are concearned, I think that English host families and some guys I met during my Erasmus experience, played a big role in my PLE! I mean, I think that sometimes I learned more English speaking with my friends instead of going to school...Don’t you think so? They implicitly taught me English and that’s what I liked most !

Then, I grouped together the places where I learn English and the tools which I use to do it. Maybe, these two categories are a bit banal but they are necessary to build my map! In order to make it more personal, I wrote some examples after each source. In this way, I think the map is more realistic!

Well ,that’s all! Let’s have a look to my map!

See you!!

Elena Carlet's English learning

I'm terribly sorry for my spelling mistake in the map!!!! I wanted to write English learning!:-(