My name is Johnathan L. Richardson, and I’m a junior at Old Dominion University. My field of study is information technology. I chose this major because I am fascinated by technology and computers. I’m creating this ePortfolio to inform others about how useful and beneficial this course is in our daily lives. My professional goals are to graduate from ODU, work for Apple with my IT degree, and then start my own information technology company. I really enjoying playing video games, hanging out with friends and watching movies. In this picture I was celebrating my birthday! All my family and friends came to support me on my 20th birthday!
Effective Reflection
In this Spanish course, I have grown the most in the Composition assignment. We were asked to choose ten verbs from a picture and write ten sentences in the past tense for this assignment. This was a fantastic way for us to practice writing sentences in Spanish. This has greatly aided me because it has provided me with a useful skill to use if I am ever forced to communicate in Spanish. It also aided me in improving my writing skills, not just in Spanish but in general. It has developed skills such as waiting sentences in various tenses and being able to explain various things. The compositions were extremely useful.
A weakness that I have is pronunciation and it’s hard for me to pronounce the words correctly. The way I overcame this was the VHL assignments and just practicing at home. Another way that I overcame this was the oral between two students helped me a lot because I got to practice with my partner and pronounce the words correctly. A strength that I have in discourse was learning vocabulary. Learning vocabulary in this course was very easy because prior to this course I had Spanish 101F and she help me a lot with vocabulary.
Exploring Culture
The best thing that help me gain an understanding of cultural perspective would have to be the VHL Homework. Sometimes in the homework it would have a video in the beginning explaining the section and would have some cultural based content.
The way this helped was because the homework allowed me to have an unlimited number of answers and even when I get them wrong. This helped because it tells me the correct answers and I will understand the content. What also helped of course was the textbook. It really helped with the conjugating verbs because that’s what I struggled with this semester and reading the textbook help me get through it. This class period helped me to view the world from a different perspective because the Spanish culture is very nice and is very different and I think that’s why I like it. Many people of my culture really don’t seem interested in other cultures but I do because its do differently from mine. I remember I watched a video about the culture in one of the VHL homework and it was showing how they were famous for their beaches and they are so beautiful.
Engaging in Communities
It very important that all culture know about each other because we all encounter each other in one or another. It is also good to interact with other cultures because it helps your perspective on the world. It helps you understand other peoples traditions and how they live their life. It is also great to experience cultures because it helps you understand people better and how people carry themselves every day. Learning about other cultures can help the world become a better place because if we don’t know about each other we can’t work or live together in excellence. In my community as the African-American race many of us are not exposed to other cultures because of the upbringing of some people. This is why this course is so imperative because it helps people that have not been exposed to other cultures see how other cultures act.
Interpersonal Communication
A activity that helped me in this course was the discussion board about how we had to look up about ruins. This was a good discussion board because I never knew what a ruin was. This is great because it exposed me to different things that I have never heard before. Another activity that was good was the TalkAboard. That was good because I got to talk to some that didn’t understand English and it forced me to only speak Spanish. That was a struggle for me because as you know I have a hard time pronouncing words so this was extremely hard for me. The oral between two students was a big help for me as well because it allowed me to practice with my partner someone that I was comfortable with and it helped me pronounce my words better.
I would say one assignment that has increased my skills was the lectures and the different activity in the textbook. In this course it was asynchronous so we didn’t have regular zoom meetings and regular lectures. So it was a little difficult for me to understand the material because I had to kind of teach myself. I believe I have grown in these assignments they I have listed above in so many ways. In the discussion boards I believe I have grown knowledge because we had to research things that I have never heard of. And the talk aboard I believe that I have done a pretty good job but I thought I could have done better only because I didn’t know what the questions were for me to practice before. Overall all the activities of this course have increase my knowledge of Spanish and increase my knowledge of speaking. I really enjoyed myself in this course.
Presentational Speaking
A presentation speaking activity that I have completed this semester was oral. Another presentation speaking activity that I have completed was the talk aboard. These presentational speaking activities were very good far as remembering vocabulary and pronouncing words.
The challenges that I have face in these assignments were pronouncing my words. Even outside of discourse I have trouble pronouncing my words correctly. And I believe that is me having a lazy tongue and not speaking my words clearly. The way that I overcame this problem of not pronouncing my words correctly was to keep talking. Even not speaking Spanish I kept talking to make sure I pronounce my words clearly. This helped me a lot with my Spanish because as I talk more English I was able to convey those same skills in Spanish.
Presentational Writing
The presentation of writing activities that I have completed the semester was the compositions. These compositions helped me a lot because I was able to not only speak Spanish but to write in Spanish. This created a skill that I will never forget.
In the first writing assignment we had to pick 10 verbs and write 6 sentences in past tense but have 10 sentences in total. This assignment was a little challenging only because we had to use those 10 verbs in six sentences but have a total of 10 sentences. What became easier was after the first composition that we had to complete the other ones didn’t seem as hard. This helped me to continue to write with confidence and not to second-guess myself. What I could’ve done better this semester was to practice a lot more and maybe find a tutor to help me pronounce my words clearly.
Interpretive Listening
Listening activities that I have done this semester will have to be in the VHL homework. The VHL Homework had videos where you can Watch it and then answer questions. The VHL homework also had assignment where you had to listen and answer the questions but they were multiple-choice. I like this because you have a video first and it helps you with the answers and then when you get to the actual assignment it’s only one attempt. The VHL homework helped me a lot this semester because other assignments had multiple attempts and you can get the answers if you get the wrong. These assignments in VHL were very beneficial to my experience in Spanish because without the VHL help I don’t think I would have passed this semester. This is because we didn’t have zoom meetings where we can ask questions and actually get taught the material.
Interpretive Reading
This video helped me a lot with learning greetings and how to say things in Spanish. The lady in the video goes on and explains her every day routines where she likes to eat and things of that nature. She also explains the basics of Spanish and how to have a proper conversation. This video helped me a lot because she has subtitles in English to explain what she was saying in Spanish. And with this it helped me understand a lot more stuff.