The yoga form is a very useful tool which allows us to evaluate our own intercultural competence.When living abroad you don't realize that you are using all attitudes learnt during your life( skills, way of thinking, way of manners etc..)
The YOGA form allows us to summarize our unconscious attitudes and competence in a very detailed way. By doing it you become aware of the your real intercultural skills and you recognize at which level you are.But mostly you know in which sectors you have to increase your intercultural objectives.In brief, the yoga form provides an assessment tool at various stages of intercultural development.
Intercultural competence, as we know, is the ability to develop and maintain relationships, the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with minimal loss and the ability to obtain cooperation with others.
Language and culture are dimensions of each other, interrelated.
In my opinion, the most interesting aspect about intercultural competence is that it offers us the possibility to go over the limitations about our own world view. It is useful to open ourself to the world and not to consider all cultures from an ethnocentric point of view( that is by judging cultures from our point of view by comparing it on the basis of our culture).
So intercultural competence allow us to become" global" participants " and so throughout yoga form we can assess our intercultural competence.
By doing it I couldn't complete the part about the level IV ( intercultural/ Multicultural specialist) because I didn't do any kind of specialist multicultural experience.( except working and studying abroad).
In conclusion I can say that it was very useful to complete this yoga form because it was a reflective moment on my real level of intercultural competence.
sabato 29 marzo 2008
skype exchange
The second skype exchange was last wednsday but I couldn't do it. Anyway I can notice from the online forum that the main topic discussed during this exchange ( and during my first exchange as well) was about "meritocrazia" and " raccomandati".
American students asked us to clarify the meaning of these two concepts and how is the real situation in Italy.
The common reaction from Americans after knowing the meaning of these concepts was that they couldn't believe their eyes: In America such things don't exist, so they were quite shocked of the fact that Italian government allows an illegal behaviour like this to get something.
Another quite interesting thing that Americans found out about Italian culture is that " meritocrazia " doesn't mean that who is really good in the life then he gets a good job.Here this fair concept doesn't exist because in Italia persons who go on are just those ones who know someone who can help them in finding a good job without having any kind of diploma or any kind of experience and competence in a particular job.
Strange I know, but it's like this.
Another interesting thing i got from the online forum is that women in America are politically well taken in consideration, I mean they can participate more often in political elections( as Hilary Clinton for example) .These are the so-called equal opportunities.
American students asked us to clarify the meaning of these two concepts and how is the real situation in Italy.
The common reaction from Americans after knowing the meaning of these concepts was that they couldn't believe their eyes: In America such things don't exist, so they were quite shocked of the fact that Italian government allows an illegal behaviour like this to get something.
Another quite interesting thing that Americans found out about Italian culture is that " meritocrazia " doesn't mean that who is really good in the life then he gets a good job.Here this fair concept doesn't exist because in Italia persons who go on are just those ones who know someone who can help them in finding a good job without having any kind of diploma or any kind of experience and competence in a particular job.
Strange I know, but it's like this.
Another interesting thing i got from the online forum is that women in America are politically well taken in consideration, I mean they can participate more often in political elections( as Hilary Clinton for example) .These are the so-called equal opportunities.
venerdì 7 marzo 2008
Hello everybody!!!!!!!
How amazing was to talk with an American girl from Dickinson University during our class!!!!!
This is a very useful way to get competence in a foreign language; but most of all it is a very good way to speak more fluently during a conversation!
Our teacher Sarah is fulfilling our dreams!!!
Indeed in our last paper, the major part of our classmates criticised the fact that our lessons are mostly based on written excercises with a lot of theory.
Now we have the opportunity to learn but at the same time to enjoy speaking! That's just fantastic!
Form the first lesson up to now we created a wiki page in which we could discuss about different things: for example about stereotypes of Italy and America.
Like this we found out considerable things about American lifestyle and Italian one.
For example about the first one( American lifestyle)everybody agree in saying that life there is frenetic, busy, materialistic and so on..I think that this is a very negative way to imagine America because in my mind I always imagine America like a moderne country based on the progress ( indeed America is the number one in almost every domains...).
About Italian lifestyle,there are two points of view: Americans say about Italy of a relaxed country, family oriented. Italians say that Italy is a lazy country with no feel for working, cheating country, someone said caotic(!!!!!)....so very different points of view...just one talked about " cristianità" that, in my opinion is one of the most common point about Italy ,and the rest agree in saying that Italy is a very peaceful country!
About Italian women:
American said:beautiful, dark, houswife etc;
Italians said: indipendent,friendly,curvy, undervaluated etc
I don't understand why Americans said" olive skin and dark hair":) since in Italy exist blonde and red women as well:)anyway, this is a wrong stereotypes about Italy.
After this task, during my last lesson I could talk with an American Girl whose name is Ashlee.
We talked in English at the beginning, but then she asked us to talk in Italian as well in order to train her oral linguistic skill.
So we shifted from Italian into English every ten minutes.
It was a very useful experience for two reasons:
1: First of all we used the language in order not to forget it;
2: We found out a lot of things about American lifestyle and Ashlee had the possibility to satisfy her curiosity about Italy by asking us a lot of things about our cultural, the organization of our Universities ( our timetables, how we live, if in a campus or if we share a flat and more and more...). She made us understand the importance of Campus life there that is quite different from Italy.
In conclusion I have to say that I can't wait to have a converstation again with Ashlee or with someone else because I enjoyed too much doing it!!
See you!!!!!
How amazing was to talk with an American girl from Dickinson University during our class!!!!!
This is a very useful way to get competence in a foreign language; but most of all it is a very good way to speak more fluently during a conversation!
Our teacher Sarah is fulfilling our dreams!!!
Indeed in our last paper, the major part of our classmates criticised the fact that our lessons are mostly based on written excercises with a lot of theory.
Now we have the opportunity to learn but at the same time to enjoy speaking! That's just fantastic!
Form the first lesson up to now we created a wiki page in which we could discuss about different things: for example about stereotypes of Italy and America.
Like this we found out considerable things about American lifestyle and Italian one.
For example about the first one( American lifestyle)everybody agree in saying that life there is frenetic, busy, materialistic and so on..I think that this is a very negative way to imagine America because in my mind I always imagine America like a moderne country based on the progress ( indeed America is the number one in almost every domains...).
About Italian lifestyle,there are two points of view: Americans say about Italy of a relaxed country, family oriented. Italians say that Italy is a lazy country with no feel for working, cheating country, someone said caotic(!!!!!)....so very different points of view...just one talked about " cristianità" that, in my opinion is one of the most common point about Italy ,and the rest agree in saying that Italy is a very peaceful country!
About Italian women:
American said:beautiful, dark, houswife etc;
Italians said: indipendent,friendly,curvy, undervaluated etc
I don't understand why Americans said" olive skin and dark hair":) since in Italy exist blonde and red women as well:)anyway, this is a wrong stereotypes about Italy.
After this task, during my last lesson I could talk with an American Girl whose name is Ashlee.
We talked in English at the beginning, but then she asked us to talk in Italian as well in order to train her oral linguistic skill.
So we shifted from Italian into English every ten minutes.
It was a very useful experience for two reasons:
1: First of all we used the language in order not to forget it;
2: We found out a lot of things about American lifestyle and Ashlee had the possibility to satisfy her curiosity about Italy by asking us a lot of things about our cultural, the organization of our Universities ( our timetables, how we live, if in a campus or if we share a flat and more and more...). She made us understand the importance of Campus life there that is quite different from Italy.
In conclusion I have to say that I can't wait to have a converstation again with Ashlee or with someone else because I enjoyed too much doing it!!
See you!!!!!
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