Skype exchange about elections

Due to some serious technical probelms, our skype exchange of this week was very short. This time the discussion was held with Michelle for the Dickinson group and Veronica, Silvia and me for the Padova group. This week's topic was the approaching of elections in Italy and the campaign in the U.S.

Michelle said she has seen Berlusconi's and Veltroni's promotional videos. Well, her reaction was very similar to ours. She said it was a brainwashing experience. The first song "meno male che Silvio c'è" sounds like a religious song - and I must say I had exactly the same impression - and the people involved have a very unnatural attitude. The second wasn't any better: the song is catchy (although not a very original choice, I think) and it is quite evident that its purpose is to look positive and full of hope of a better and "shining future". Can you think about a bigger lie?

I think she got the point of our political crisis when she asked something we've been asking ourselves too: why do we say we don't like certain politicians and then we keep voting them? Well, unfortunately the answer is absurdely simple: because we don't have any valid alternative. Candidates are always the same, no way of getting rid of them because power is only a big cake to share.

Skype exchange with Martina and Marigny

My latest skype exchange was with Martina and Marigny, and our main topic was politics, with a particular attention to the election campaigns both in Italy and in the U.S. The second part of the conversation was on our future perspectives and the connection between politics and “meritocrazia” in the public administration.
First thing, we asked the American girl about her personal opinion on politics. She said she doesn’t like it and we all agreed on the fact that the Bush administration has been some kind of failure, mainly because of the war in Iraq. She doesn’t really know who she’s going to vote for and thinks the campaign is still open. I told her about the video “Obama girl” (unfortunately she hadn’t seen it), and we drew a comparison with Berlusconi’s and Veltroni’s promotional videos. The general impression is that they are all very similar, after all: they use catchy jingles and try to appeal to all social categories, thus appearing democratic and deeply concerned in the future of their country. What annoyed me the most about Obama’s video was the exploiting of the image of an appealing girl just to gain votes. Because of this ridiculous approach to politics, I have the strong feeling that all candidates strongly believe they can fool electors very easily; I personally feel they’re trying to make fun of me – actually in a very naive way. All the three of us share the discontent towards these people – no matter what party they belong to – because it seems all they care about is power and money.
As Marigny studies psychology, she would like to work with children in the future, and help them out when they have problems either at school or with their parents. Martina wishes she could become a “cultural mediator” for the "provincia". We needed to explain what that means in Italian because both terms sounded unknown to her. A cultural mediator is supposed to help foreign people to get integrated in our culture and to learn more about its institutions. The term provincia indicates an administrative unit inside each region, which has specific competences. Martigny was particularly surprised to hear that one needs to have certain conections if he wants to be hired in a public instituion like the provincia or regione. Again, the problem is that politics and public administation are too closely related, thus preventing capable people to get a good job and help their community.

Developing intercultural competence

When one fully realizes that language and culture can be seen as the two sides of the same coin, it's time to start to take a closer look at both. We can imagine it as a journey and each stop as a new idea that we can put in our bag and make ours. Stop by stop our understanding of the other's culture will become ever deeper and more complete.

This is the aim of the YOGA programme: to assess our intercultural communicative competence. The good thing about this form is that it helps us to focus on some specific issues, i.e. awareness attitude, skills, knowledge and language proficiency. In my opinion, being conscious of what we have been doing so far and at which stage of the process of learning we are can be the right attitude to improve ourselves.

The big challenge, though, is that not only do we need to become aware of what we can do but also endeavour our abilities to cope with another cultural ambience. The key to that is our will to know and learn more about it, and at the same time to be constantly ready to modify our opinions on it. Moreover, we should not forget that the observation of another culture always includes the critical observation of ourselves and of our way of living.

Second skype conversation

Due to the absence of my usual partner Rachel, this time I skyped with Ashley (who found herself without a partner too). As it was our first talk, we started by introducing ourselves. So I found out that she is in her first year and her major is archeology. Our first topic was the Easter (or spring) break: she asked me what people usually do on Easter Monday. I explained that we meet up with our friends and take a trip to the hills around Padova, we play soccer, eat, drink and, above all, have a good time!

We had the occasion to compare comedy in the English and Italian culture through two milestones of this genre: on the one hand Monty Python and on the other hand the "Fantozzi" series. Because the English series is almost unknown in Italy and viceversa, we came to the conclusion that comedy is deeply culture-bound and, therefore, people from different countries laugh in different ways. I suggested Ashely that she should take a look at what's available on youtube regarding the most famous "ragioniere" of the 80's. Being a cult series, I think it can be a good occasion to deepen her knowledge of Italian culture. Hope she enjoyed it.

Have a laugh!

Spiderman parody

First skype conversation with Rachel and Chiara

Despite some problems with the line (sometimes they couldn't hear me or I heard a lot of background noises), the conversation was definetely interesting. The very first topic was the weather and it seems it's very similar to ours! (though not as warm as here). Chiara is a first year student, is 18 and hasn't made up her mind yet on what she's going to study. Rachel is from Spain, and is going to stay at Dikinson's university for one year as Spanish teacher.

We talked about the differences in the respective school systems. In the US there is no distinction between "liceo" and "scuola professionale" and all high schools follow the same programmes. As far as university is concerned, the first year is the same for all degree courses and then students decide what to study afterwards. Campus is also a fundamental part of university life, so that there is no actual distinction between university and "private life". In Italy instead, the feeling that these are two separate things is much stronger, as students live either in private acommodations or with their family.

When the conversation switched to Italian, we discussed about the questions that emerged in the Wiki, namely about the meaning of the word "raccomandato". I explained to Rachel and Chiara that it is not something related to the feedback that students give to their teachers and that the so called "raccomandazioni" do not only apply to this field but to all jobs (unfortunately...). I hope my explanation of this typically Italian "phenomenon" was clear enough!

I'm really looking forward to seeing Chiara and hearing Rachel again.

Germans and the English language

Enjoy!

Raffa