Staff exchange in Tandil, part 2: intercultural communication

Three weeks in Tandil have been busy and full of activities. Short course "Marketing and production in Audiovisual Media" at Faculty of Arts, "Facts and figures about Finland" for students of English at Department of Languages and workshop "Marketing and new media" at the Faculty of Economics, meetings and discussions with professors and teachers, in the evenings cultural events like concerts and theater...

During the English lessons I told the basic facts about our country and the students were very active and asked questions; we were talking about education and health care in Finland, about cultural differencies and family life. There are different types of problems in these two countries, lots of stereotypes and images about each other, it is interesting to change ideas. And of course we were talking about climate, sports and sauna! Yes, it can be -35 in the winter time, and yes, some people can enjoy sauna with +100 C...believe me or not.

Photo 1: English teacher Giselle Blanchiman (third from left) with her students

About 20 students and teachers attended "Márketing y producción en Medios Audiovisuales" at Faculty of Arts. I was teaching in English, professor Miguel Santagada and Mariela Manfra were translating when needed, but most of the students understood English quite well. We had discussions about similarities and differencies in media culture, audiovisual production and audiences in Argentina and Finland, about financing film production, posibilities for co-operation. We also talked about new ways for marketing with web 2.0 / social media. Interesting topics, nice to talk with active students! And believe me: it was hot as in sauna in the classroom! And NO problems with presentation technology, really!

Photo 2: Students of "Márketing y Producción en Medios Audiovisuales" and
Mariela Manfra with perfect English (first from right)

More postcards next week!