PATCHWORK ESSAY

  On July 22 I, as part of the Culture class of ULACIT, had the pleasure to exchange my personal view of Costa Rica traditions and way of been of Costa Ricans with a foreign person. All of this was done through an activity that Neli Santiago organized. The main purpose of the activity was that the person that worked with us guesses which was my patchwork quilt and based on that we discussed or talked about Costa Rica and her culture.

   I do not remember the name of the person that worked with me but she was a lady from Austria. She was really nice and she liked Costa Rica a lot. Actually she was going to stay here for an extra period of time (after her trip finished), she talked with me about her foster family, she said that her “mom” was really nice although she did not speak English at all, so it was very funny and hard for her to communicate with her mom, she told me that she had to mimic everything. She also mention that she did not liked Costa Rica food at all because it is too salty or too sweet and she mention that all or the majority of our dishes has meat and it is funny because I had not realize that until the moment she said that. For her was very easy to discover my quilt, because I describe it and she just found intermediately, also my patchwork quilt it was the only one that had a lot of elements on it.

   To conclude, I will like to said that this activity was very important because I had the opportunity to practice my English, I also had the opportunity to learn about other culture, to see the differences and similarities that we share. Something funny is that they also eat “arroz com leche” in Austria; she told me that they prepare it in the same way but they called it different. I think ULACIT should do this kind of activities more often because they are very important and we enjoyed a lot.

Self-evaluation

1.      How much time and effort did you put into this?

The time that it activity or work required

2.      What do you think your strengths and weaknesses were in this course?

I am not really sure. I think something that was hard for me was giving and doing the lesson plan, I think that was something really hard to do.

3.      How did you feel you performed in this course?

I think it was good. I think what the teacher asked me to do.

4.      What are the most valuable things you learned from this course? 

I think I learned a lot, I learned a lot about USA culture and other cultures, I learned to value more my culture and I learned more about my culture, I learned how to incorporate culture into a class and I learned the dimensions of culture not only what they are but also how to analyze them and apply them.

5.      What would you do differently if you had a chance to do this all over again?

I would start by doing everything since the beginning and not waiting until the last second

6.      How do you feel the cooperative learning approach worked in this course?

It worked well

7.      Do you have any suggestions for improving this course?

To give more indications in order to make the project quicker

8.      What else would you like to add that I did not ask?

I think the questions that you put are enough; I do not have any extra suggestion