INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

HI everybody,
let's talk about intercultural competence.

According to wikipedia: “Intercultural competence is the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures”. Knowing the culture and therefore the background of the people speaking to you is extremely important in order to have a better comprehension of the interaction. Moreover, it is a social competence because it enables you to better understand why people behave, think and speak in a certain way. Cultures differentiate from each other not only between nations or continents but also within a group of people (such as a family). Intercultural competence helps you not to judge the behaviour of a community as right or wrong according to our own culture and values but to consider it as acceptable. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be happy about it, you are not obliged to share those habits and values but probably you have to accept them.

A deeper intercultural competence means a better relationship with a community of people who has their own values and lifestyles. Intercultural competence helps you to become flexible and open. The comparison among different cultures is positive and in many ways it enriches a person. Furthermore, it is important to discover and understand new point of views, because it can lead you to think about something that you had never considered before as well as to have a better understand of your own culture and values. In order to develop your intercultural awareness you have to get rid of prejudices and to be sensitive towards other cultures. Moreover, you have to understand and also make yourself to be understood, to be clear and flexible and express yourself in a transparent way. According to wikipedia:

it is a balance, situatively adapted, between three parts:

1. knowledge (about other culture, people, nations, behaviours…);

2. empathy (understanding feelings and needs of other people);

3. self confidence (knowing what I want, my strengths and weaknesses, emotional stability).

(Reference: wikipedia)

(Source of the picture: google)

THE IMPORTANCE FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGES LEARNERS TO BECOME INTERCULTURAL COMPETENT

In my opinion it is extremely important that students studying foreign languages develop the awareness of the importance of becoming intercultural competent. It is also important that foreign languages teachers help students to get more familiar with different cultures; especially if teachers are mother tongue they represent cultural referents for their students. The best way to do so is to supply learners with cultural notes which can help students to become more familiar with a culture which has proper ways of thinking, acting and perceiving things. Although the best way to become intercultural competent is probably to live abroad for a certain period of time, it is also very important that teachers at school or university insist on cultural aspects with the same energy that they insist on grammar correctness. On one hand teachers should stimulate students to develop their interests towards foreign cultures; on the other hand it is indispensable that students own some attitudes such as: openness, tolerance, meta-communicative competence, emotional flexibility, cultural empathy.

Finally, in my little experience, the course of English that I am attending at University of Padua is arousing my curiosity and interest towards English and American culture. The teacher, who comes from United States, delivers cultural notes and helps me and my colleagues to reflect upon italian culture as well. Moreover, thanks to some activities such as skype-ing and wiki-ing I am developing my intercultural competence and awareness of the importance of becoming intercultural competent.

What's your opinion about?

Bye bye

Francesca

Stimulating skype-experience

Hi friends!

I’m here again to tell you about my second skype experience. Last Monday I had my second skype exchange, it was really STIMULATING! In this conversation I didn’t speak with Bari but with Lea. We continued talking about the same topic of the previous week which was recycling; Lea asked me some questions (in Italian) about the recycling situation in Italy. It was a little difficult to understand her Italian (and her American too ); moreover, sometimes I couldn’t hear her voice clearly, anyway I really enjoyed myself in this conversation.

Lea asked me some questions about the initiatives which are promoted by Italian ecologists and about the degree of pollution in the north and in the south of Italy. Unfortunately the Italian government is not investing a lot on green projects, anyway I told her about few initiatives which are promoted such as “domeniche a piedi”: when the degree of air pollution becomes too high some regional councils (especially in the north) decide to stop cars (on Sunday) from driving in the city centre. Although this initiative is really important it represents only a little contribution to the improvement of the situation (if the government invested more money on green transportation system maybe the degree of air pollution would be lower!!). When she finished her questions I hadn’t time to ask her further questions about New Orleans because our skype time was finished.

The conversation was really stimulating and has many positive implications ^_^. We both had the opportunity to exercise our foreign language (she spoke in Italian and I in English).


From a linguistic point of view skype conversations made me reflect towards two directions: grammar mistakes and fluency. I make more mistakes when I speak than when I write, this is because an oral speech requires immediacy (there no time to think about grammar correctness). Moreover, I realized that it is difficult to converse on-line but this type of conversation represent a challenge that stimulates me to exercise more and more in order to improve my English. As regards my language fluency I noticed that I am not so fluent as I would like to be, for this reason I need to excercise a lot. I think that reading and repeating are good exercises but what is very important is to think in English as much as possible.

As regards the content my conversations with Bari and Lea helped me to enlarge my intercultural knowledge as well as to find the information that I lacked as regards the Italian recycling situation!


Finally I think that recording the conversations and analysing them from a linguistic and cultural point of view is really helpful for improving your language skills and enlarging your intercultural knowledge.

(The picture is taken from google: http://www.ictblog.it/uploads/skype-settembre.jpg)

That's all for the moment
Bye bye

Francesca ^_^

Skype-ing: a new exiting experience!

HI EVERYBODY!

I’m back (this sentence reminds me of my favourite song played by Oasis “the boys are back in town”) on my blog with a new exiting experience to tell you!

Exam session is finished: this means that I have more time to spend on my blog. The activities of this semester are really exiting since we are collaborating on TulanePadova wiki with some American students from Tulane University of New Orleans. Moreover, we have also the possibility to talk with them by using skype.

(Have a look at Recycling in Italy and Recycling in USA)

Our first conversation was on Monday (5th of March). It was GREAT! I spoke with a woman called Bari; she was really kind and funny. At the very beginning I was a little shy :-( because I didn’t know the person that I was going to talk with, but as we started our conversation my shyness disappeared immediately. It was a little difficult because she was speaking quite fast (American English is not that easy) but very stimulating. Bari didn’t want to speak in Italian she preferred to talk in English and that was ok for me since I could practice my listening and speaking abilities!!

After a brief presentation the subject of our conversation was recycling (our wiki is about the recycling situation in New Orleans and Italy). We asked to each other some questions, I wanted to know something more about the recycling situation in New Orleans after the devastating hurricane Katrina. After the hurricane New Orleans citizens had to face several problems included garbage problems. Bari told me that in New Orleans there are not specific laws about recycling, for this reason not everyone recycles (quite the same in Italy. Unfortunately!) She also told me that at University only a small number of students recycle. Finally she said that after the disasters caused by the hurricane they have many problems to solve (such as: the reconstruction of the city) maybe this is one of the reasons why they don’t invest enough time and energy on recycling

As far as my little skype-ing experience is concerned I think that this activity is very exiting, useful and stimulating for many reasons:

1. From a linguistic point of view:
· it enables us to practice and improve our language skills;
· helps us to exercise our comprehension skills;
· gives the opportunity to exercise our spoken skills together with our writing skills (we collaborate on editing a wiki)

2. From a cultural point of view:
· Thanks to these conversations we get more familiar with a foreign culture (in this case the culture of the language that we are studying).

In my opinion I think that the mix between language and cultural aspects is essential for anyone who is studying a foreign language. The scholastic system in Italy is mainly concerned with language and grammar rather than with cultural aspects. Thanks to this English course, in particular wiki-ing and skype-ing (the activities of our second semester) we have the opportunity to practice a language and exchange cultural notes, which is the best way to learn a foreign language.

Take care!
See you soon
bye bye
Francesca