Developing intercultural competence ICC

First of all I asked myself what’s the meaning of ‘intercultural competence’. Does it refer only to the correct use of a language? I mean a grammatical correct use? Of course not. I think it’s not only a matter of a second language proficiency. A cross cultural preparation also includes a range of other abilities connected with the awareness and knowledge of the other culture.

When you start studying a second language you also start to discover another culture, different from yours. It’s not an immediate goal that you achieve in a very short time. Intercultural competence is a developmental process which in my opinion takes ages and it’s different from one person to another because it depends on everyone’s experiences. Certainly someone who plunged in a certain cultural context developed the capacity to deal more appropriately with the other culture and with the field she/he chose.

When I have to assess myself I find always difficulties. Especially this time is difficult because I have to judge the process of my intercultural competence that is always in progress. For example during this course I feel that my competences changed a lot thanks to our conversations in class about culture and foreign traditions and thanks also to the Skype exchange.

Assessing myself with the YOGA form was not an easy task, but it can be useful to set myself new goals. Unfortunately I had to skip some parts because they don’t apply to my experience. What surprised me most was that within the five dimensions of the ICC (intercultural competence) there is what is called Attitude (the other four dimensions are Awareness, Knowledge, Language Proficiency and Skills). I tend to skip this aspect because it seems obvious to me. However, after the YOGA form I realised that it’s a really fundamental characteristic that is required by someone who study languages. If someone has not ‘Attitude’ towards another culture or language, can he/she achieve this dimension? I don’t know. Probably the answer is no.

2nd Exchange

Our second Skype exchange was a funny and strange experience. This time I was supposed to talk alone with my American peer Kelsey. Unfortunately she wasn’t there and so I joined Alberto’s conversation. He was talking with Leah Barreras, a girl of Mexican origin. We talked about the years of lead in Italy. What she knew of our ‘70s came from some Italian movies she saw. However, she ignored who the Brigate Rosse are or what happened to Aldo Moro. Then we focused our conversation on international terrorism and the problem of immigration after September 11. According to what Leah said it seems that there’s no great difference in the approach of Americans towards immigrants after that terrorist attack. Mmm, I’m a bit sceptical about this point. Then we ran to Bush’s policy and the Iraqi war and finally we discussed about American and Italian coming elections.

When I said that this time I had a lot of fun I was not referring to the topics of the conversation but to the strange dynamic of our talk. During the first half an hour we were supposed to chat with Leah because in the same class room there was another lesson taking place. We explained the problem to our peer but she continued to talk instead of chatting. You must believe me when I say that it’s almost impossible to keep in silence when someone is talking to you or to answer him/her by writing. That new form of communication we experienced was really funny but at the same time it was also a bit difficult to keep it going on. Furthermore, it was really frustrating to listen Leah talking and we couldn’t answer in the same way. I realised that I find speaking much more interesting than chatting. The whole thing ended up in a strange experience with Alberto and me making a lot of noise and with Sarah who scolded and silenced us every two seconds. If you want to read the transcription of our conversation have a look to Alberto’s blog.

Happy Easter

Elections

In a few months both Italy and America will have elections. Italy has a different electoral system compared to the American one. Or at least it should be different. In America they have presidential elections; in Italy we are supposed to elect our Parliament and not directly our Prime Minister. However, the last two or tree Italian elections seems to go against Italian Costitution. Consider our coming elections. We know precisely who is going to be our future Prime Minister. They have decided for us. Berlusconi or Veltroni? That is the question! We are so good at doing such sort of things and make them appear normal and ordinary things.

Il progetto di riforma costituzionale del 2005 e il referendum del 25/26 giugno 2006:

Il Parlamento italiano aveva approvato una rilevante modifica delle disposizioni dell'attuale Costituzione (una cinquantina di articoli furono modificati da tale legge). Qualora tale riforma fosse entrata in vigore, si sarebbe prospettata la nascita di una Repubblica federale con un esecutivo nettamente più forte. Tra le principali disposizioni di tale (fallita) riforma costituzionale si possono citare in modo non esaustivo le seguenti:
Sostituzione del Presidente del Consiglio dei ministri, adottando la versione del sistema parlamentare detta premierato, con un Primo ministro che verrebbe designato direttamente dagli elettori.

What seems to emerge in our questionnaires is that both Americans and Italians are discouraged by politicians. What Italian and American politicians seem to have in common is corruption. But if Americans have such an idea of politics why do they have such an enormous campaign machine? It looks like a show and people seem to be really involved in caucuses and primaries. I'm really interested in knowing the opinion of my American peer.

Cultural differences

The fact that I'm doing an exchange with an American student make me think about cultural differences between America and Italy. The first thing that comes to my mind is the theme of the death penalty. I'm curious to ask my American peer what she thinks about it. More or less I agree with the following opinion:

Padova-Dickinson Xchange

This semester started with a wonderful activity: an exchange with American students. We introduced ourselves to the Americans writing a presentation on a Wiki page and they do the same. Wiki is a web page that we are aloud to edit, so it seems a work in progress where we add step by step our activities. There you can find also information about exchanges taking place between Padova and other foreign universities.

My first impression is that this exchange works. WOW! Hopefully this time the American students seem more interested in communicating with us compared with the students of the first semester. They study Italian so they are really motivated in talking with us.

It is the first time I use Skype and I have to admit it’s a surprisingly simple tool to use. It’s amazing how easy is to communicate with a person who is not – to use a euphemism – just round the corner.
Kelsey, my American peer, is very nice. During our first call we were supposed to talk about American and Italian education systems. But it is funny how the conversation developed in a different direction. It was the first time we talked together (Kelsey, Alberto and me) so we tried to know each others better asking questions about our interests and spare time. I was a bit envious because Kelsey has been to Italy, whereas I’ve never been to America. She visited Florence and she wants to come back soon and spend some time in Rome.

What I learnt from Kelsey is that we have a quite wrong idea of American colleges. Life in a college is not like that depicted in American movies: parties, brotherhoods and so on. We also talked about public and private universities. They exist both in America and generally the private ones are considered of higher quality compared with public universities. However, there are a lot of exceptions.

To conclude I found this first experience really amazing and I’m ready to talk again with my American peer. What I can reproach myself for is the fact that talking in three seems a bit unnatural to me. So I tended to listen instead of joining the conversation. May be this happened because it was the first time I used Skype. I’m sure next time would be better.