Gemellaggio Stati Uniti:
3DL ISIS CRESPI - MDC MIAMI
American vs. Italian Culture
January
28th 2014
I
want to thank the following students from 3DL Alkassis
Amera, Bordos Inesa, Regalia Paula, Spirito Elisa, Poretti Marina, Tucci Marta,
Barjami Iris, Molla Sofia, Caccia Alice, Ascrizzi Francesca, Miano Valentina,
Libretti Alessia, Mancuso Letizia, Rimoldi Federica, Frontini Camilla, Altavilla
Maria Giulia, Ciancia Valeria, Campobello Giulia, Croci Rachele, Cormani Rebecca
for their interest in
the joint project between Italian students at the Daniele Crespi Institute of
Secondary Education (www.liceocrespi.it) and the MDC, Social Environment class,
Florida, USA
(www.mdc.edu).
From October 16th 2013
to the end of the term in December the Italian students have communicated with
the following selected
American students via school email only: Delgadillo Lorely, Estrade-In
Baptiste Anne, Fonseca Jason, Pereira Deivis, Alarcon Melissa, Carrera Ivo,
Medina Monica, Mendes Eder.
As there were more Italian students
participating in this assignment, together with the American teacher and
instructor Ms Patricia Schwartz, whom I want to thank for the opportunity she
has given to me, I
decided to divide them into groups and to allow only the team leader to be the
email contact between the project.
After making contact with the first “meet
and greet” email,
the students have been engaged in email “conversations” to learn about each
other’s cultures. Our students are
generally very good at English, but I remember
that one of Ms
Schwartz’s suggestions was that her students should not speak in idioms or
slang that may be germane to Americans. In fact one of the universal traits of
all cultures is language and to compare different cultures using the same
language to communicate was one of our main aims.
Apart
from the information gathered via email, the students had been provided with a
list of web sites and encouraged to surf the Internet for useful materials to be
guided on what topics
they might wish to discuss with their American counterparts.
The
visible results
of this project are the following Power Point Presentations, five of them are
‘traditional’ whereas three are more dynamic. In fact thanks to their Maths
teacher, Mrs Valeria Mariani, some Italian students decided to work with Prezi,
a programme which bids farewell
to one-dimensional thinking and welcomes instead the power of inter-connection
and flexibility.
But
I think there are other results, which are less apparent but come clear if I
read my students’ comments on the project. Of course everything can be done
better, but thank you for writing:
“(…)I’ve
personally learnt a lot from it (the project): we often think that people living
in other countries are very different from us, and don’t even try to
understand their point of view. We definitely AREN’T so different (…)” (F.)
“I think one of the most interesting things we’ve found out was about stereotypes: about Americans, but most of all about Italians! I’d never realized foreigners could really believe such things about the Italians! Plus, I also understood some of the things I, like many others, had been thinking about Americans were just prejudices.! (M.G.)
Vittoria
Macellaro
Italian
Instructor
America vs Italy mail after mail
Americans, what do they think of us
Holidays & Traditions Italy and the US
Miami Vs Milan part1
Miami Vs Milan part2
Education in the USA Vs Education in Italy
