VIDEO SKYPE EXCHANGE

This week we experienced a new way to finish our Tulane-Padova exchange: through a videocamera!!! Oh, I wish we had done it since the very beginning, I enjoyed it very much, it was really fun!
I appreciated the whole exchange experience. Talking with the Tulane students and in particular with Bari was.. how could I define it.. interactive! I talked a lot in English about different topics and I really used this language, also because when you talk on the phone and cannot use your hands and body to communicate what you want to say, you concentrate all your effort on selecting the write words and putting them into clear sentences. I also paid as much attention possible on my pronounciation in order to be more comprehensible to native speakers. Thinking about it now, perhaps this attention on pronounciation was also a sort of natural behaviour typical of when we try to become similar to the people we have to do with. However, I really liked this experience.
I'm just a bit sorry that I really didn't do much to encourage my peer to speak in Italian. I mean, they just didn't feel very comfortable to speak in Italian and after the first two sentences they switched on to English. Perhaps, if we had had more time it could have been easier to convince them, or it could have been possible to do half of the time in English and half of the time in Italian... ?ill keep this in mind if I ever do any exchange again!
As far as this week's video exchange is concerned, as I mentioned before, it was really fun! Especially when Roberto got the microphone!!! Well, the first part of the exchange, when they talked to us about Virginia was certainly more serious. By listening to them you could understand how much this story shocked them, they really seemed to be very intimately involved with it, especially the first girl who talked. However, then we moved on from this sad and dreadful fact and asked them some questions that had to do with the topics of our presentations. We all had a very good time, we were able to see them, their faces, how they were dressed and how they gesticulated, which, in my opinion are other important factors which helped us to get to know the American culture better.

That's all, I really appreciated this experience and will always remember it as an effective way to get more into a foreign language and culture.

Isabella

REFLECTIVE BLOGGING 6

This week I still want to talk about my last skype exchange. As far as our class wiki is concerned, it's developing more and more. Our last page was on 'water resources' both in Italy and in USA. I learned a lot about the Vajont dam and the Mississippi river.
This week my skype exchange with Tulane was again with Bari..this time I asked her how they pronounce her name in America, she said it's pronounced like the word 'berry'. It was our last skype exchange because they finish university this month and next week we are going to do some sort of a collective exchange with a video too!!
However, this week Bari and I talked about her group's final presentation. They did it on recycling in Italy and presented it to an association in order to suggest some new ideas concerning recycling. In fact, as we were able to notice when we analysed this topic in class, they are having many problems with recycling because of the hurricane Katrina. So we mainly talked about how they organized their collaborative work and their presentation. Then I told her about what topic my group was thinking to analyse for our final presentations (immigration) and she gave me the name of an important corporation of the US which looks forward to prohibit illegal immigration in America. It is called 'minuteman'. I searched for more information about it on the Internet and perhaps I'll talk about it in my final presentation.
Moreover, we talked a little about water resources in the US and in Itlay. She told me about the dangerous floods of the Mississippi in New Orleans and this is why I decided to talk about this river in the 'Water resources in the US' page.
That's about it for the moment!

Isabella

REFLECTIVE BLOGGING 5

Last week we had another skype exchange with our American peers. This week I talked with Bari, with whom I had talked already two or three weeks ago. We talked a lot..most of our conversation was done in English!
First of all we talked about easter because I wanted her to tell me what they usually do in Easter during this period.. but she is jewish!!! So it was me who talked for a while about what we do here in Italy and she seemed to be interested.
Then we started talking a little about alternative energy sources and also about recycling. Differently from what my last American peer had said to me, Bari said there are some solar pannels in her city, and above all near the highway.
Then we talked a lot about a hobby we have in common, e.i. going to visit new countries, and she talked to me about the ones she liked best. After talking to her my will to go to visit Russia grew even more!
In the end we talked a little about what kind of job we would like to do in the future and also about universtity and some differences between Italy and USA in the years of university.
I had a good time and liked this last exchange because we were able to touch many different topics in just about half an hour.
Lets see how the next one is going to be!
bye,
Isabella