Exploring Culture

I really enjoyed watching hispanic cultural videos. When witnessing how store bargainers and customers communicate with each other, I realized how different American culture is. I feel like in America, we buy things just to buy and often times sell things just to sell, usually this tactic is to meet sale quota as an employee but for a customer its just to shop! After observing the communication and body language of those in the videos, you can see so much passion amongst the people. I could tell that they really do care about what they are buying and/or selling.

Spanish body language and commentary has always been very interesting to me even before taking a spanish course however, it became more interesting to me after taking a spanish course. There is so much drama and passion involved depending on their mood, setting, food they are eating, emotions, etc. The tone in a spanish speakers voice is so intense and powerful, I could tell because i’d instantly know if the speaker was upset, happy, surprised, etc. When two people are having a conversation, the tone can change and make you realize that they may be asking you a question by including Si? Or No? At the end of a sentence. I didnt really have any stereotypes about the spanish culture, I have just always been aware that it differs a lot from my life, in some ways I wish my culture was more similar!

Engaging in Communities

It is important to engage in my immediate community because every helping hand matters. It is easy to think that I am only one person but one single person can make a difference and I always remind myself of that. It is also important to engage in the global community because the world will be a better place. If I engage and others engage, there will be a huge impact on the world.

In High School, I engaged with communities by becoming a member of a program called best buddies. In this program, I worked alongside students with disabilities. During these after school meetings I would often help these students with homework, talk with them as a friend, give them help if they needed it, attend holiday parties/dances with them, etc. This was very important to me because each day I knew I was changing lives. Sometimes it almost felt like I’d needed them more than they needed me, it was a very warm feeling and it felt really good to give back to the community. We often did bake sales, fundraisers, and street cleaning during the program to get everyone involved.

Interpersonal Communication

I was very nervous for the talk abroad at the beginning of the semester due to my unfamiliarity with how it operated. I felt that I would not do well on it because of my nerves however, I really enjoyed it. I loved both women I spoke with on talk abroad. They were both very kind, smart, outgoing, and nonjudgmental. They made me feel very comfortable in the talk abroad space so it was a very interesting experience for me to talk to someone from another country and learn about their environment.

The interviews helped me a lot by exchanging back and forth with another person rather than it being more “lecture” based. It helped me realize what I was doing good and what I needed to work on. Throughout talk abroad, I learned that it was easiest to understand my partner by looking at her body language as well as her facial expressions or whether or not she was using her hands to gesture certain things. I began doing the same thing when talking because it made me feel more confident in my speech and I felt more enthusiastically involved. I struggled sometimes by trying to say too much at once rather than breaking it up into different sentences so by the time I had my second talk abroad, I was able to fix my mistakes and have a smoother conversation. This also helped my nerves because I had gotten better about not trying to bite off more than I could chew. Additionally, taking notes and practicing with myself prior to talk abroad was also very helpful. It prepared me for my interview because I was able to pick up key words and clues in her speech to help me better understand what she was saying/asking.

Presentational Speaking

In class this semester, I engaged with my classmates and we would ask each other questions on several occasions. in the textbook there would be questions to ask and either myself or my partner would answer the question independently depending on the question presented. For example, there were questions such as “¿Qué hiciste este fin de semana?” and I would reply, “Pasé tiempo con mis amigos y fui a la playa.” I enjoyed this because it gave me the opportunity to challenge myself by seeing how much vocabulary I knew.

Focusing on key words was most important to me so that I had a firm understanding about what I would be saying and what my classmate would be saying. For example I would focus on words like, “amigos” and “la playa” as said above. Those are two very familiar words to me so was able to understand the general topic which then helped me form sentences.

Presentational Writing

During class, we worked on two writing compositions. One in which focused on fashion trends on college campus’s. We were able to create our own stories as “mock” school reporters so I conducted my interview questions with my friend outside of class. I asked her questions about trends on campus and if she had noticed any during the fall season. I then conducted my composition in spanish which was the hard part.

I struggled with this part most because conjugating words was very difficult for me to understand. Additionally, figuring out what the masculine was and what the feminie was in certain situations confused me as well. I would usually mix the two up (masculine and feminine) so the entire sentence would be incorrect. I began using duo lingo as well as quizlet to self tutor/study and create my own flash cards. I would flip the cards after taking my guess and after a while, I began getting the hang of it. Duo lingo was especially helpful for me because it helped me understand my mistakes outside of class, this then made my VHL homework more understandable and manageable.

Interpretive Listening

Throughout this course, interepretive listening came into play very frequently. It was usually involved in every homework assignment, quiz, and exam. I always found that the hardest ones were on the exams. During the listening portions for homework, I was not timed so I was able to take my rime and re-listen as many times as necessary. However, during exams, they were timed tests so i had to try to understand the spanish being spoken quickly to be able to interpret the question and figure out the answer.

I had a difficult time understanding fast speed speaking. Sometimes I felt like I couldnt understand what was being said so on a few occasions, I misconstrued the words and got my answer wrong. Other times, sentences are slower. The slower sentences give me a better advantage because I can hear the speech more clearly. The most important part for me was key words. This helped keep me on track of where the conversation was headed.

Interpretive Reading

Reading in spanish has always been somewhat easier for me as I am more of a visual learner. I like to be able to see things on paper because it makes my brain operate for efficiently. I enjoyed several readings this semester. As a class we did a reading assignment followed by questions in chapter 7 called “La siesta” and I was very surprised by what I learned bout the Spanish culture. Additionally, reading the paragraphs in Spanish helped me understand the vocabulary for upcoming/future assignments.

The more I read in spanish class, the better understanding I had. We did a fair amount of reading in class and as an English major, this benefited me a lot. Listening and Speaking have always been my biggest struggle when it comes to learning another language, writing has always been my strong suit. If I get stuck reading, I will either go back or continue reading on to gain knowledge about what else is going on, then I pick up context clues regarding the sentence to try to make it out. The readings were enjoyable because Spanish culture is full of surprises and interesting facts.