The third Skype exchange was really funny, the teacher suggested us to do a conference, so the members of my group were Francesco, Alice and me. We spoke just a little about alternative energies in Italy and America, as none of us was really competent in the topic, it was difficult to keep on the conversation. We didn’t want to say pointless things or information so we move to an easier subject: stereotypes. We talked about what we think about Americans and he told us what Americans think about Italians.

To be honest our American peer is not 100% American and has Italian origins, so he was a bit partizan and in my opinion he didn’t say all the truths about the considerations that Americans express usually on Italians. However, I discovered many interesting things as the following ones: in America it is thought that PIZZA is a local product and that all Italians are fashion victims!!

During the conversation I noticed that Francesco had some problems in understanding me, and I think the main trouble is associated to intonation: even if a word was already a part of my vocabulary, and I was sure of its pronunciation, he didn’t understand me: Using a completely different intonation creates misunderstandings. For example I told a joke but I couldn’t convey the idea of irony in English and only Alice was able to understand me( Life is hard!). I think that listening to a native speaker is a perfect exercise to improve amd learn the right intonation, even if I have never been taught to paty attention at it.

The task of this week activity was to find information on alternative energies in America and to correct grammar and content mistakes in our wiki page about renewable sources of energy in Italy .I think it was a really effective assignment as to become a better conversational partner, we have first to develop a critical eye on the topic, otherwise it is an unprofitable job. Anyway one can find information by himself and then ask his/ her partner if what he found was correct or not, so he/ she improves their vocabulary and can try to guess the pronunciation . In my personal experience when someone corrects my pronunciation is easier to remeber the correction.