My Experience of the Exchange

First of all, I really have to say that our exchange was a wonderful experience overall. I really felt involved in it and I really appreciated our peers’ determination to know us better. Moreover, Italian is far from being an easy language so I was really flattered by their efforts to speak or write good Italian.

What can I say to sum up the answers to the questionnaire?

FEELINGS…

Undoubtedly, following all the activities was challenging sometimes because we also had other courses to attend. However, I was really satisfied both with the final project and the exchange because you can never know if you will have other similar occasions in the future.

Of course there were also moments in which I felt a bit uncomfortable: comparing some aspects of our country with such a big nation as America is not always encouraging. Anyway, I also have to say that our American peers were really down to earth people so they didn’t have a condescending attitude towards us and were really aware of their own weak points as well.

KNOWLEDGE…

Apart from Skype, I also learnt a lot from the forums: they gave me the possibility to discuss issues concerning both Italy and America and the questions our American peers posed gave me a more clear idea of how we, as Italians, are perceived abroad. One of the most important things I learned is that sometimes the media give us an image of the United States that does not always correspond to reality. They offer us stereotypical representations of people and places, so some of the discussions going on in the forums helped me to know what real people think or believe and to consider the American culture in a less superficial way.

As for our final project, it was one of the few group projects, in my university career, in which I really felt involved. I generally prefer individual activities because I like to work at my own pace but I have to say that I really liked to work for the wikipage and to have contacts with my peers also outside normal classes.

LANGUAGE LEARNING…

As for my language learning, I don’t know if there has been consistent improvements or not…the amount of time spent talking in English was relatively small. Moreover, talking English with each other (I mean, we Italian students) sounded really embarrassing and strange to me.
However, I think that we had several occasions to learn how real people write or talk in the real world. I have also learnt to become more familiar with a less formal and academic kind of English and I’m happy of that because I think this is the way real people talk or write.



Well, I’m looking forward to sharing my experience with you all tomorrow…so see you then!!!

(photo taken from Flickr)

Bye

Alessia