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WEBCAST!!!

Last Monday my peers and I had the chance to presenat our final group work not only to our Italian class but also to some students from Middlebury College, USA. We had a webcast exchange with students we don't know at another American university and it was definiteky a great experience!

I worked on my final presentation with Francesca and Lara and we chose to make a comparison between American eating habits and the Italian ones: the result was a ppt file based not only on the information we discovered surfing the Net but also on what we learnt over Skype with our American peers from Tulane.

Whether it is in front of a small group or some larger outside the class, anxiety about speaking in public is just a fact of life: it is something I both hate and enjoy. At the very beginning of our group presentation on Eating Habits – USA vs ITALY I definitely panicked but I was able to conquer the fear and in the end some words came out from my mouth.

Nowadays speaking of food is a current topic which involves nearly everyone and above all young people: this was attested by the questions the Americans asked soon after my first speech. I did not immediately realized they were a positive reaction towards our work and in fact my mind went blank and I didn’t know how to keep on my performance without being too much superficial. Provoking reactions, let’s say of every kind, in the audience should enrich our “performing” in public even if at first it can be scaring.

Other three italian groups presented their group works and they managed to survive in an excellent way: Lucrezia, Francesca and Annalisa talked about national celebrations both in the States and in Italy; Maria Chiara, Alice and Susanne told us something about the American fraternities and sororities and the Italian goliardia; while Isabella and Svjetlana made their presentation on the immigration problem both in Italy and in the USA.

Finally we listened to Nemanja Tepavcevic's work on Il potere dell'amore personificato and that of Brooke Farquhar on Boccaccio, Ariosto e le qualità amorali delle donne. They both made a very nice presentation and it was nice seeing what an advanced Italian class is doing down in the States.

Once again I appreciated a new technology, i.e. webcast, as another step to gain intercultural competences that might be very usefyl not only in my future career but also in my life in general.

Alice

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Joining hands in skyping!!!

Last Monday our final Skype exchange with our Tulane peers was with VIDEO!!!

Since Sarah told us that our last exchange would have been with video, my first thought was not to come :-( Finally, I did obviously come! And I'm still exciting about it!!! It was really an instructive experience!

Since we've talked over Skype almost all the times with the same peer, we all were interested in meeting our peer ;-) We were skyping altogether in a big conference and, luckily, there was only one camera in the lab which was zooming in on the person who's speaking at that moment. At Tulane's they had one fixed camera so whenever they wanted to speak they had to move to their teacher's desk and take a sit down there.

At the very beginning of the conversation -I guess- we were all a bit embarassed by the camera: we broke the ice asking the Americans what their opinion was about Virginia Tech massacre. Since we all are university students, what happened on the american campus impressed us probably more than anyone else. We got into the gun control debate in the United States and I felt we were all not really confortable with the subject matter.

Sarah probably realized it as well as she promptly moved the conversation forward: we asked them something regarding the topics of our final presentations (i.e. something about their eating habits, their university system including the existence of fraternities and sororities, something about their national celebrations and even something about immigration down there) and the atmosphere became more friendly and relaxed.

Learning experiences made of feeling strong emotions and gathering knowledge at the same time are the most effective ones! Skyping with video is really one of these experiences which has enriched not only our English learning career but also our intercultural competence.

Alice

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Next week there will be our last Skype exchange WITH VIDEO with our American peers from Tulane ;-) I guess we'll skype altogether in a big conference and, as Sarah has already told us, a camera will zoom in on the person who's speaking at that moment :-( I'm quite exciting about it but also a bit scared to talk -let's say- in front of such a big audience :-( However, I'm sure it will be veeery funny seeing our very Italian speaking hands moving quickly!

Francesca, Lara and I will probably ask them something about their 'eating habits' that we chose as the topic of our final presentation; we decided to compare American and Italian eating habits: our starting point is the opposition between FAST FOOD and SLOW FOOD.

The Slow Food Movement was founded in 1986 after Carlo Petrini had led a protest against the construction of a McDonald’s in Rome. Developed in opposition to the globalization of fast food and the McDonaldization of life, the Slow Food Movement has evolved into a lifestyle that stresses the need to slow down, to protect and preserve local food culture, and to re-educate society on the importance of taste and food.

Not only Italy but also the United States, which is the biggest violator of Slow Food ideals, has developed a growing Slow Food community that is changing the way Americans approach food.

I'm very interested in preserving the regional traditions of our culture and food plays a vital role in reaching that goal. The topic of my final project at the University of Verona was on the multifunctional roots of farm holidays within the Mantuan countryside. The Mantuan farmhouse hotels and restaurants have the important role of both protecting the landscape and promoting the sorroundings.

Healthy eating is directly linked with taking the time to enjoy food in a relaxed state of mind; however, destructive eating habits and production practices have affected the health of the American public. I think in their small territory the Mantuan farmhouses are trying to be a good alternative to such unhealthy lifestyle.

Alice

Collaborative!


My peers and I have been working on wikis for several weeks within an intensitive collaboration to create texts by working closely together both talking through and writing the text together. Given that writing is a complex and never-ended task, collaborative writing with multiple authors adds to the complexity.

All our e-tivities have certain steps in common: at the very beginning of a new wiki page each of us write an individual part then the team edits and revises the draft in small groups. At the end we get feedback from our e-tutor Sarah mainly concerning the grammatical and lexical aspects and the wiki page lay-out.

Given that group work takes more time than if we all do it ourselves, I'm sure it provides a better learning experience . I guess it is simply a matter of students being lazy and group work is great for motivation: they force you to be responsible, to do more and better work! I've already observed that the result can be both enjoyable and frustrating: it can be a pleasure because responsabilities are divided and problems discussed and solved together but it can be also frustrating because there's always someone else judging our work.

I think my personal contributions within our collaborative wiki pages are improving thanks to the use of Skype too. On the wiki page there's always the possibility to leave a comment and my peers and I have widely use this comment botton to leave ideas, suggestions or help requests but it's often taken some time before someone's replied; using Skype chat for instant messenging it's quicker and you can easily go on with your work.

Since I've been using Skype I think I'm doing better my work and I don't feel alone in front of my computer ;-)

Alice


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Alcohol... negative effects.


During our 3rd Skype exchange Laura, Isabella and I had really a good time. It was Laura's first day after the Spring Break which is a week where no lessons take place at the university and students are usually very busy with alcohol parties on campus. She told us something about the fraternities and the sororities at Tulane University: Isabella and I
were very interested in it because in the italian universities they don't exist. Of course we wanted to know if what we're used to see in the american films really happens in everyday life at the american universities.

Fraternities and sororities are famous for drinking: they organize hard alcohol events best known as keg parties. Laura explained us that to join a fraternity or a sorority one has to commit hazing violations which are much more tragically famous in the southern universities. At Tulane, for example, fraternity hazings mainly consist of getting completely wasted.

She said she left her sorority only after one semester because she didn't like it and above all because it was very expensive: she had to pay dues in order to stay, money used to rent venues for drinking games and crazy parties, to buy hard alcohol and to hire the room where they were used to meet every week to organize their activities.

Unfortunately alcohol has been a part of university life since ages and remains nowadays the drug most abused by students. Alcohol has become a prominent point of discussion on campus because students who engage in high-risk drinking are at the most risk for negative consequences such as academic problems, legal and disciplinary sanctions and injuries.

Alice


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ITALY vs UK


Last week my peers and I tried to fill in a questionnaire called YOGA which stands for "Your Objectives, Guideliness and Assessments" (Alvino E. Fantini, Brattleboro, VT, USA 1995) for self-evaluation of intercultural competence. We all found the questions very difficult and in fact Sarah told us that the goal of the YOGA form was to start a reflection above our cultural awareness and cultural competence as students of foreign languages.

We then moved to the analysis of Geert Hofstede who identified five cultural dimensions which enables one to see how countries and regions are similar to or differ from each other; rather then use my own words I prefer to cite Callahan's exahustive definitions of the first four cultural dimensions and cite Hofstede own words to define the main characteristics of the fifth one:

1. POWER DISTANCE which refers to the degree of acceptance of the unequal distribution of power in society (Callahan, E. 2005);
2. INDIVIDUALISM. Individualistic societies (USA, Australia) value personal achievement while collectivistic ones (Panama, Ecuador) emphasize the benefits of working in a social group. People in individualistic countries tend to take care of themselves and their nuclear family. In collectivistic cultures people are integrated in strong groups, which offer protection in exchange for loyalty. The meaning of the family is extended to all blood and in-law relatives. The accomplishments of the group are valued—a person should use his or her skills to advance the group (Callahan, E. 2005);
3. MASCULINITY. Cultures with a high masculine index maintain traditional distinctions between gender roles and perceptions, whereas feminine cultures tend to dissolve gender differences. Masculine cultures, such as Japan and Italy, place values on challenge, advancement, social recognition, and acquisition of wealth, while feminine cultures (e.g., Norway, Sweden) value quality of life, security, taking care of others, and the environment (Callahan, E. 2005);
4. UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE measures the degree to which people tend to stay away from uncertain situations. It is often mistakenly interpreted as risk avoidance, but actually avoiding uncertain situations could be accomplished by setting strict rules, or by actually taking risks to prevent long term uncertainty. High uncertainty avoidance countries (e.g., Greece, Portugal) prefer formal rules and regulations in order to reduce the amount of uncertainty, and are less inclined toward change than countries with a low uncertainty avoidance index (e.g., Jamaica, Singapore) (Callahan, E. 2005);
5. LONG-TERM ORIENTATION: -persistence; -ordering relationships by status and observing this order; -thrift; -having a sense of shame. SHORT TERM ORIENTATION: -personal steadiness and stability; -protecting your ‘face’; -respect or tradition; -reciprocation of greetings, favors, and gifts (Hofstede, G.).

Now I'd like to try to compare Italy and the United Kingdom: I'm gonna take into account these five cultural dimensions and I'm gonna base my observations on my personal experience; after doing that, I'll compare them with Hofstede's analysis.

1. Power distance. I think both in Italy and in the UK the gap between the wealthy and the poor is getting bigger in terms of basic things like the use of power and the oppurtunity to rise in society. However, in both countries people express their opinions without any restriction and the respect of titles and formality is very high.
2. Individualism. Once again I see Italy and the UK at the same level as regarding the relationship between group and individual: Italian and British people are independent and responsible for themselves and their individual achievement is highly valued. On the other side I consider, for example, some asian countries being high on collectivism.
   
3. Masculinity. The tendency of the two countries to emphasize traditional gender roles is very high, even though women have made much progress and some of them hold top business positions.
4. Uncertainty avoidance. Italian people are certainly more prepare to face and react to uncertainty than the British people; norms and values to create order and predictability are stronger here in Italy than in the UK.
5. Italy is for sure a long-term oriented country where the most important events in life will always occur in the future while the UK is short term oriented where what's of more importance takes place now.
   

Even though Hofstede's model provide a powerful framework to distinguish among national countries, one has always to keep in mind that national countries change every single day. I'd like to report here the ratings of every cultural dimension which refer to Italy and the UK (Hofstede, G.):

1. Power distance. Italy 50 vs UK 35
2. Individualism. Italy 70 vs UK 89
3. Masculinity. Italy 70 vs UK 66
4. Uncertainty avoidance. Italy 70 vs UK 35
5. Long-term orientation. Italy ??? vs UK 25
   

References

• Alvino E. Fantini (1995). A Central Concern: Developing Intercultural Competence. Retrieved March 25, 2007 from http://www.sit.edu/publications/docs/competence.pdf

• Callahan, E. (2005). Cultural similarities and differences in the design of university websites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 12. Retrieved March 25, 2007 from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/callahan.html

Photo taken from Flickr

2nd Skype Exchange

Last Monday I skyped with Laura, a very nice girl from Tulane University. As I did in the first skype exchange I run the conversation speaking in English while Laura was speaking in Italian and I can say for sure she's really good in Italian and what's more she was very interested in how we recycle in Italy.

She's giving her active contribution to the recycling project at Tulane University: after Hurricane Katrina New Orleans remains submerged by debris and a gloomy and frustrated atmosphere covers the city. Only within the Tulane University they do recycle and for this reason the university and its students are collaborating with the council to develop a plan to clean the city and to help to ready the area for rebulding.

First of all Laura wanted to know my personal point of view concerning the recycling issue but soon after I understood she was mainly interested in how we manage to develop recycling education programs in primary and secondary schools but also within universities. She's really looking forward to find solutions for the current gloomy situation in New Orleans. I think american students are more involved in the matter than we are.

I skyped almost for half an hour ;-) and I also recorded our phone call :-(
It was very strange to listen to our conversation and once again I felt very unfamiliar with my voice speaking in English :-( I had the chance to listen to some of my peers conversations with other Tulane students too and I realized how their voices sound completely different when they're speaking in English even though I could recognize who they were.

I think it's not that easy to share our Skype experiences: I find it quite embarassing but I'm sure it's really a good exercise for our English learning experience ;-)

Alice


Photo taken from Flickr