4 young adults in Italy togehter with 1 young adult in US...THE EXCHANGE EXPERIENCE

Photo by ocean.flynn

First of all I would like to say is that I really appreciated doing the exchange, it has been an amazing experience, one of those things which are, for me, the future of language learning. It belongs to that category of experiences you always look forward doing but you rarely have the chance to actually do. Hopefully we experienced it, and now I can say that it was absolutely worth doing and I hope other students will repeat it in the future.
As far as my own experience is concerned, I feel I really got in touch with the American culture, and I really liked the fact that our American peer was so nice, friendly and helpful. Moreover, the exchange has been a successful experience because it has been incredibly easy to communicate with people never heard before, who live on the other part of the ocean; thanks to this exchange I can now state that we’re not so “different” at all, apart from the obvious cultural and social characteristics linked to the country we live in. As for contents, I learnt so much about American politics, and I liked the fact that we focused on the issue of the 2008 election campaign, so that we were all well informend over a topic which is treated in the news everyday; in this sense, the exchange allowed us not only to compare our politics with theirs, but also to better understand and be fond of a topic of general interest nowadays. However, it was not always easy to talk about politics, and sometimes we had to face some misunderstanding, especially about Italian politicians and the Italian political system.
Furthermore, I realized that the problems the two countries have to face are not so different too. In fact, while dealing with the issue of immigration, I clearly understood that the American culture seems to have the same problems with Mexican immigrants that we have with people coming from Romania or Albania; give this fact, their attitude towards them seems also very similar to ours. The only thing that surprised me was that I didn’t absolutely realized before how much Spanish speaking people suffer emargination and prejudice in the US; I think I had just heard something about it before the exchange, so that this is an issue I would like to focus on, because it sounds so strange for a European. Europe, in fact, especially in the last few years, seems to love Spanish and and spanish speaking people, and they’re not marginalized at all, they’re extremely well-perceived, if not smart.Last but not least, I also learnt a lot from the skype sessions when we discussed the topic for the final project, which for us was “Young adults in US and Italy”; we had the chance to talk more freely and about more easy things, such as college life, habits of young people in both countries, marriage and so on. It was really interesting, and it also made me reconsider my own culture, given the fact that I’ve perceived the American culture as being much more flexible then ours. As far as language is concerned, I obviously improved by conversational skills and my ability in keeping the conversation going, and I also learnt a lot of new words, belonging to the semantic field of politics, but also of everyday life.

Camilla

Here comes the sun...

Photo by Sun Drama

Skyping...a bright new world I've been discovering in the last few weeks!

I had never used Skype before, because, to tell the truth, I'm not so fond of all these new Web 2.0. tools...but I must admit that it's a great means through which we can easily talk to American students...

...who could imagine such a development of the tools provided by the Internet? Surely, I couldn't!

I remember myself being at middle school and listening to music cassettes with English native speaker talking, and watching some movies my teacher bought in England...and now...see how things have changed just in a 10 years time! Web 2.0. provides a number of tools which, I believe, will change completely the way languages will be taught in the future! And we're just at the beginning!

However, as far as our Skype session is concerned, I really liked talking to Michelle because she's very nice, kind, friendly and helpful and actually it was so easy to talk with her that I soon forgot that I was talking to someone I've never heard of before, who lives on the other part of the Ocean! We discussed the issue of immigration in the two countries, and I realized that it is something I didn't know anything about! For instance, I didn't know that the Latinos and Spanish speaking people were so marginalized and discriminated in the US, and this is something which differs a lot from the European context, where people coming from Spanish speaking countries are perfectly accepted, if not well perceived, given the high level of popularity Spain is achieving in the last few years!

However, in the next Skype sessions I would also like to discuss some other issues, and discover, for example, how do they live as University students in the US, and I would like to know something about her habits, hobbies, tastes, what does she know about Italy and so on! I would like to know which are the differences and similarities between being young University students in the US and in Italy!

That's all for the moment...see you soon!

Camilla

Thinking about the final project...

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Photo by kansasliberal

Here I am thinking about the topic I would like to develop for the final project..

...there are mainly two things I would be interested in working on, such as the working policies for young people and health care.

The first topic is obviously something which we are very interested in, given the fact that we'll be looking for a job at least in a year...so that I would like to compare the working policies for young people in the US and here in Italy, in order to see the differences and the similarities.

Secondly, I would be interested in discussing the issue of health care, which I think is a problem of great importance in the US: I would really like to know something more about it.

That is all for the moment...I hope we'll find a compromise as a group and focus on a topic we are all interested in!

Camilla

What about immigration in Italy?

I think that this is a hot topic to talk about, especially here in the north of Italy where the problem is particulary felt as important.

First of all I would like to say that immigration does not only mean "poor people arriving with ships in Lampedusa" but it is a phenomenon which occurs also with reference to many other kinds of people coming to our country for different reasons.

However, it undeniably true that most of the times immigration involves people from poor countries moving to other countries which are supposed to be wealthier. I would like to underline the fact that, for instance, as far as Italy is concerned, it is "supposed to be" wealthier because of the fact that, at the moment, it is not a particularly wealth country, so that immigrants may find it more difficult to integrate into our society.

Having a look to the data provided by the Istat as regards immigration in Europe and in Italy in the last few years, you can see that Europe has welcomed 34% of the whole worldwide immigrants, whereas North American has received just 23% of them. This is an interesting thing, particularly if we consider the size of the two continents. Moreover, in the last few years immigration has provided 89% of the whole European demographic grown, which is also an important matter to take into consideration.

As far as Italy is concerned, at the beginning of 2006 the number of immigrants in our country was of almost 3 million people. Most of these immigrants come from a few number of foreign countries, such as Albania, Morocco, Romania, Ucraina and China. Another important thing is that nowadays the number of clandestine immigrants coming in Italy crossing the sea with ships is much lower than in the 90s.

These are just a few data to see how the phenomen is developing nowadays in Europe and in Italy; however, I think that in each Italian reagion there are different approaches and different problems concerning immigration. Living in the Veneto region, for instance, we do not have problems concerning clandestine ships or whatever similar, but we are literally invaded by a huge number of people coming from Romania, and as far as I'm concerned, I feel this may turn into a problem for the population because of the fact that some areas of the city can be actually be perceived as "Rumanian colonies". Moreover, we're also facing a lot of problems because of the racquet ruled by illegal immigrants, so that our cities aren't safe anymore.

I know some of the things I've just written down here can be considered as commonplaces, and in fact they are, but actually I cannot even say that those problems do not exist: I would be hypocrite.

There would be also the religion problem to discuss...but it is such a ticklish topic that it requires an overall analysis which I'm not going to do here.

Camilla

A bridge to spring...

Longing for spring eventually to come...here we are discussing the US election campaing again!

During these last weeks I've been reading a lot of articles about what's going on in the US, I've been following the news in Italy and I've also been watching videos on the web; I'm really happy I'm having the chance to do that, because I think it's really interesting, useful and challenging to be able to discuss such a topic, which is of great importance nowadays. Moreover, even if in the Italian news we daily hear about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, I believe that not many people in our country know exactly what's going on, I don't even know if everybody is aware of the fact that Mr. McCain actually exists, so that I feel myself as having the privilege of having the means through which I can read, listen to and learn about this topic of great actuality.

There are a couple of issues which I'm particularly interested in with regards to the US campaign. First of all I really enjoyed having a look at the websites of the three candidates, which I found really different in the layouts but all of them very interesting and effective. I enjoyed doing such a work on the websites because I think that the web inevitably has a great importance in nowdays campaigns. For this very reason the web can be an important place where to build up a campaign and where to reach the audience as well as the television or the newspapers.
Secondly, I'm really interested in the health care issue, which I believe is among the most important problems in the American society. Moreover, I'm particulary interested in such an issue because health care is one of the greatest differences between American and European societies. Finally, health care is one of the important fields in which the three candidates are competing with each other; it is a particularly important issue mostly for the left wing candidates, whereas McCain focus most of his campaing on wars, on fighting against terrorism and on safety.
As for health care, here is the link to an article and a video in which Hillary Clinton discusses her position towards this issue. And here is the link to the transcript of an interview in which she discussed health care. In the next weeks I'll provide some more links in order to know something about Obama's and McCain's position on health care too!

See you all tomorrow afternoon!

Camilla

In my shoes...a newspaper...

This week task is about press, and the way the election campaigns are discussed in three different newspapers coming from three different countries.

The newspapers I've chosen to analyse are:

• The New York Times (USA)
• Il Corriere della Sera (Italy)
• El país (Spain)

I've decided not only to analyse how the three different newspapers deal with the American elections, but also to have a look at how they discuss each other campaigns, given the fact that all of these countries are experiencing an election campaing or have just voted their former President.

As for the American elections, the NY Times is obviously very focused on them in this particular period, and it devotes part of its website to this topic. In the section of the website devoted to politics and there are maps giving the results in each state, summaries of the situation of delegates, videos, podcasts and blogs. Moreover, in the Election Guide 2008 you can find all the possible materials concerning elections, such as results, candidates profiles, finances, primary calendars, schedules, and issues developed in the programs. Day by day the situation is supervised and there are articles concerning each single sentence said by one of the candidates, which gives the idea of how a big thing these elections are for America.

As for the coverage of the elections or campaigns taking place in Europe, the NY Times seems to be a little regardless of what's going on in Italy or Spain; this is probably due to the fact that

they're having a big campaign inside and thus they're not so interested in loking outside, but also to the fact that Americans are known to be a very patriotic people, and so not particularly interested in seeing what's going on in the rest of the world.

As for the Spanish elections, for instance, the NY Times devotes just a couple of articles to Zapatero's victory, one of which has such a title: "Socialists Re-elected in Spain, After a Bitter Campaign", which actually gives the idea of the NY Times having never talked about Zapatero's campaing so far.

As for the Italian election campaign, the NY Times seems to be not interested at all in following what's happening between Veltroni and Berlusconi, given the fact that if you look for the names of our candidates, Veltroni and Berlusconi, in the website searching engine, you can find just three or four recent articles, containing their names, which means that America does not follow our elections. They rather follow what's happening with Alitalia, maybe because of the fact that Italy is mostly view as a touristic country, so that they're interested in knowing own to reach our country...

...well...they're welcome!

What I found particularly interesting is that on December, 13 2007 the "Quotation of the day" was taken from a Veltroni's speech: "It's a country that has lost a little of its will for the future. There is more fear than hope" which probably reflects what they think about us abroad.

The Corriere della Sera gives a lot of importance and space to the American elections, both in the "Esteri" section and in the "Speciale USA 2008", which offers clear explanations of how elections work in America, videos, information and a complete glossary of specific words.

The Corriere also focuses on our home elections, but I think that the overall coverage for American elections is probably as complete as the one devoted to the Italian campaign.

As for Spain, the Corriere followed the elections quite exhaustively, and I realized that Zapatero's TV commercial has had a wide resonance even abroad; in fact, it is quoted even in Italian interviews and articles.

El País, on its side, is following te American elections in a less detailed way; there are obviously articles concerning the situation and the what's going on within the primary elections, but they do not have a special section devoted to the US elections or candidates, and they just discuss them in the "internacionales" section.

As for the Italian elections, in the website of El País they're following them, but not in a particularly exhaustive way. In Spain they seem to focus a lot on Berlusconi's words, both to quote and criticize him.

While analysing the three newspapers, I've noticed that there are some issues they have in common while discussing the American election campaign. The first thing I would like to say is that in America, Italy and Spain too, the attention is focused on the democratic party, and obviously in the run to get the nomenee between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In most of the articles, both in Italy and in Spain, McCain is not even mentioned, unless in the end, with a conclusive sentence such as "In the meanwhile, the republican McCain...".

This is particularly interesting because it gives the idea of how the whole world is concentrating on the left wing campaing, sometimes no even knowing who McCain is, or what he thinks and says.

Secondly, I've noticed that, as far as photos are concerned, all the newspapers prefer to use Obama's pictures rather than those of Hillary or McCain; this may be due to the fact that he's got a better look on which he's investing a lot during this campaign; moreover, he's younger, which may be relevant too.

Finally, all the newspapers put online the video of Hillary Clinton when she was a baby: this is a video which seems to have had a lot of success online!

That is all for this week discussion!

See you all nest week!

Camilla

Hillary or Barack?

Here we are again!
The new semester has just begun and so my blog is about to be updated weekly again!

The task for this first e-tivity is very interesting because it has given me the chance to look for more information about the US election campaings which actually I’ve been following day by day on the news. However, thanks to this e-tivity I’ve done something which probably I would have never done, that is to say, listening to a great number of speeches of the two democratic candidates, and, visit their own websites.
I’ve chosen to follow the democratic campaing because I’m getting more and more involved in this challenge between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which actually is fascinating the entire world! I believe that such a challenge between candidates belonging to the same party is a great demonstration of democracy, which eventually is something unknown in a country like Italy, where we’re not allowed to choose pretty anything, neither the candidate we want to vote, or the President we would like to have. We’re living a political campaing in our country too, so that it is even more interesting to see how things are ruled abroad, in order to become aware of what’s wrong with our democratic system. Moreover, what is extremely interesting is the fact that this US campaing is having a worldwide resonance; all around the world people is interested in knowing who’s won in which state, eventually neither knowing where that state is. All around the world people say things like “If I were American, I would vote for Hillary or Obama” and these are just the primary elections. This fact means that the interest in who’s going to rule America for the next 4 or 8 years in relevant for the rest of the world; nowadays, in fact, being it right or not, where goes America, there follow the other countries.
As for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s speeches, I’ve compared what they’ve said on March, 4th, after the great day of the primary elections in a number of American states. As for Hillary’s speech, I’ve seen that she often uses very short and effective sentences, she’s able to focus the main point of what she’s saying very quickly, but, on the other hand, she’s often a very patriotic attitude, which she stresses maybe too much. Hillary likes to underline her being experienced in the whole White House matter, for instance when she says that: “When there's a crisis and that phone rings at 3 a.m. in the White House, there's no time for speeches or on-the-job training. You have to be ready to make a decision”. She is the one who knows how it works, she is the one who’s already been there, and this is one of the strong points of her campaign. Moreover, Hillary obviously stresses the role of women, and I particularly noticed the fact that when she thanks some Senator or Governor, she always thanks thier wives too: she’s been the wife of the US President, and she knows the role a wife has in the career of her husband.
If on the one hand Hillary’s speeches are effective and easy to follow, Barack Obama’s ones are maybe less formal. His sentences are much longer and complicated than Hillary’s ones, and he’s got a stronger accent, but his style is more attractive, more young-looking and his sentences seem to be more natural (as for example when, in the middle of his speech, he tells his slogna in spanish “Sì, se puede”). He doesn’t look like a traditional “politician”, even though his speeches are full of slogans such as “We believe” or “We can”. He likes to stress himself being the “new one”, being “the one who will bring change” in the system, as opposed to Hillary traditionalism and experience. He also stresses the importance of the family as a whole, as opposed to Hillary’s focus on women.
Anyway, the strong points of thier campaings are more or less the same: the need of ending the wars, the economic recession, health care and the problem of those who are homeless.
With reference to thier websites, I must say that I really like Barack Obama’s one, which I found effective in the general outlook, in style and in the use of colours and images. It is quite simple to be surfed, as opposed to Hillary’s one, which I consider a bit overwhelming and confusing, with too many colours and tools. However, Barack Obama’s website is a little too “romantic” considering the fact that is a website for political elections; even if the Obama family’s photo on the homepage is really nice and can be effective for a certain kind of audience, I defitely prefer Hillary’s pragmatism.
That is all for the moment, but I will keep following the American elections beacause I’m getting more and more fond about them and I haven’t yet decided for which of the two democratic candidates “I would vote”! Moreover, I have to look for information about John McCain too! The real campaing has not yet become!

Camilla