ETIVITY 9: ONE LAST LITTLE THING

Concerning formal instruction I comprehend that attending English linguistic courses helped. At the beginning they seemed a little boring, and then I realized that they made me understand better the structure of English, which is not simple at an advanced level –at least for an Italian speaker.
Especially the course of Professor Taylor helped me deeply to think about the structure of English. Of course, it was very difficult but now all the times I write I reflect more about what I want to say and in which way.
Concerning informal instruction I had some Skype conversation with Brian, my peer from the University of Dickinson. These conversation were slow, but helped me to speak English more fluently and the fact that American students are less expert than Italian students in the target language helped me to feel more self-confident in conversation.
The course of professor Guth is more informal compared to Busà and Taylor courses, but I really have to say that I learned to use better the tools of the computer and I recognize that this tools are useful also for my work in office and I think this course will be useful also for my research for my thesis.
So, I really have to say that I am satisfied about English course II, especially for the parts of professors Guth and Taylor, because these parts improved my formal education through the linguistic part and my technological skills through the parts done in the lab.

TASK 8: ASSESSMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

During this period I had some Skype conversation with my peer Brian. He is an Italian American person and so he knows Italian culture: his grandparents come from South Italy and he often come to visit them.
I did not feel cultural differences, may be sometimes I feel difference of age; in USA the students are younger than Italian students.
We exchange information about the topics (for example terrorism) given by our teachers, but I’d prefer to talk also about us, for example about university, personal interest, the symbols (movies, TV films, stars, music..) and the big problems (sanitary system, poverty, obesity, immigrants..) of USA.
The level of the target language of my American peer is a little bit inferior (clearly because American students study Italian since few years), so I tried to speak slowly and with short sentences to make him understand better what I want to say.