This semester has been two things for me;
- Interesting and fun
- Difficult and hardworking
Starting off my experience with the ODU Spanish program was both fun and challenging. My professor was Profesora Maria Gomez, who was very understanding.
At this time, I had previously taken Spanish courses in high school. However, I wasn’t sure how college level courses would challenge me.
And so, the semester started and so did the work. It started off pretty easy, but as time went on, it felt as though things were heating up a bit. I’m not saying it was extremely difficult, but there were a few hard times and mistakes here and there. Overall, I was able to improve greatly on my speaking skills while growing confident in my abilities.
Artifacts
A good artifact is a portion or clip of an assignment. It needs to be carefully selected to provide evidence/proof that supports what you are saying in your reflection.
Your reflection will help you determine what that will be. It is a quest for quality. It will represent you academically and professionally, and have personal meaning. It can be written, audio, or video.
At the end, ask yourself if the artifacts best demonstrates your abilities and growth over time.
At the end of your reflection in each section, link or embed the assignment/artifact. If the assignment has multiple pages and seems to overwhelm the section, consider adding just the first page and offering to provide the rest upon request.
Instructions
Exploring Culture
While the class wasn’t focusing too heavily on culture just yet, 101 did highlight countries in Central America and popular travel sites.
Engaging in Communities
I think music is extremely engaging, even to those outside of a specific community. In terms of learning Spanish, it is of utmost importance to understand not just the language, but the Hispanic culture as well to consider oneself “fluent”.
Interpersonal Communication
The interpersonal communication activities that I was assigned this semester helped me improve on my Spanish speaking skills and talking to others. The assignments in particular that aided in my communication skills were the discussion board assignments and Flipgrid.
With each discussion and Flipgrid video I become more comfortable with each assignment. I struggled a bit with my speech initially, but we were given a lot of resources to make sure we are saying it correctly. Over time, I learned to be wary of mistakes, but to also let them happen or else I wouldn’t be learning.
Presentational Speaking
This semester, we had 4 speaking activities due to not meeting directly in a classroom. Some activities I enjoyed that aided in my speaking abilities was Flipgrid and Lingro Hub.
Presentational Writing
This semester we wrote quite a bit. Since the class was online we were challenged often with homework assignments, quizzes, and test that measured our comprehension writing. At first, writing in Spanish was hard. I did not entirely remember, or sometimes know, where certain accents would go.
Interpretive Listening
I had assignments that I did on LingroHub where I listened to short clips of audio in Spanish, I interpreted them and gave a response back in Spanish. This was a little difficult for me at first because I would have to listen to the clip a few times to try and make sense of it. As I progressed in the class, I didn’t have to listen over and over again as I was able to recognize the words and knew what they meant.
Interpretive Reading
I really enjoyed the reading assignments I did in class and on Lingrohub. Using context clues definitely helped in figuring out what I was reading. I felt that I was able to understand Spanish more by reading it instead of listening to it. Translating text became more easier as I learned more Spanish.
