Pour encourager les échanges directs avec des américains étudiant à Paris, Francie Seder et l’ICART ont mis en place le système des Buddies, american Partners...
Francie Seder,
Professeur d’anglais,
responsable du programme des
Buddies à l’ICART
In keeping with the ICART’s hands-on pedagogy, This semester’s English course will consist of a series of encounters with American college (university) students who have come to Paris to study. After a general overview of Franco-American cultural differences, focusing in part on the implicitness of French culture and the more explicit nature of American culture, each buddy meeting will have a theme for you to discuss in groups of two or more.
The purpose of these evenings is to promote linguistic and cultural exchange, in other words, cross-cultural communication. You are expected to communicate about half the time in French and half in English, or you may choose to allow the Americans to speak French while the French students speak English. By the end of the semester you should have developed your English vocabulary, learned about aspects of American culture previously unfamiliar to you and pondered some of the generalizations and stereotypes about Americans.
The ultimate goal of cultural communication is to accept different systems of reference. Students are encouraged to perceive American cultural differences from an American point of view in order to improve cultural communication and understanding. Through this exchange students should achieve greater awareness of their own cultural habits and values.
Requirements :
Students are required to attend at least 7 of the 9 ‘buddy meetings’ in order to take the exam about cultural differences. Due to the experiential nature of this course, its goal can only be achieved through interaction and communication with American students.
Buddy meetings take place on Thursday evenings starting at 19H.
Topics :
Class I: Exercise: Getting to know you.
Class 2: Some fundamental cultural differences, including the greater implicitness of French culture and explicitness of the American. When is this inversed? Stereotypes—Do you see yourselves the way others see you?
Class 3 :Conversations/ Advertising.
Class 4: Friendship and protest ( unrelated subjects)
Class 5: Sharing Comedians: humor, how does it differ? Psychoanalyst Pascal Baudry says that humor lies at the intersection between the implicit
and the explicit; in other words where what is implicit is stated.
Class 6—Education: What do we mean by this word in French and English. How do our educational systems and child-rearing differ in the two cultures?
Class 7 Culture: what is it? What role does it play in your life? Good contemporary authors, artists, Rock or classical musicians, actors, opera singers, magazines, films… from your culture( French, American or other that your counterparts should know about?)
Class 8: Food, gastronomy and holidays, what is the importance of these and the traditions or habits surrounding them. Is there such a thing as American dishes?
Class 9: Pascal Baudry’s summary of Franco-American cultural differences.
ICART, l’école du commerce de l’ art et de la médiation culturelle
ICART - Art business school
61-63, rue Pierre Charron - 75008 Paris - Tél : 01 53 76 88 00 - Fax : 01 53 76 88 45 - Contacts email