Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Instructions

Exploring Culture

I learned and research the cultural differences between the English language and Spanish. Growing up Hispanic I have always been aware that some things are different. Like here we are definitely more advance when it comes to electronics compared to Spanish speaking countries like Panama, Mexico , or Puerto Rico. Overall though many things are not different, I learned that when I visited Puerto Rico. Everyone was friendly, a lot of them spoke both languages and the only difference I could see was how families tend to live together instead of separating.

I had a eye opener because I always thought the Spanish speaking countries sort of struggled more compared to non Spanish speaking countries. I was completely wrong and I needed to learn that. I actually learned that I like their art more. They take pride in their history just like we do as well as their art. I like their food it is different with the taste. I personally think that everyone should go to a Spanish speaking country because reading about the differences or similarities does not really teach much, or open up your eyes compared to seeing it in person.

Engaging in Communities

Communicating at home was first a issue since most of my Hispanic family members do not live near me besides my father. All my siblings do not speak the language so me taking this class was a ig step for my family as well. Once I started to engage and ask my father for help, he started to help me more. He also has a girlfriend who speaks mostly Spanish and I have gotten to speak with her as well.

Another place I engaged in Spanish was in my work environment because I work with people who speak the language. It was interesting to learn different things about the culture that I was not aware of. I feel like engaging in Spanish outside of class helped me understand in class and helped with assignments.

Lastly this year I went to Puerto Rico with my significant other and that is a Spanish speaking country so I was able to really engage speaking Spanish there. I knew more than I gave myself credit for.

Interpersonal Communication

In English, give a very brief 3-4-line description of TalkAbroad and other interpersonal oral/audio activities, discussion board and other interpersonal writing/reading activities you completed this semester inside or outside of class for or related to your Spanish learning. (See Modes of Communication link for definition and examples).

I personally enjoy doing Talk Abroad besides having to pay to do it. I pay for college and have bills and already pay for books for school so I think it would be nice to find something like talk abroad where students did not have to pay to do it. Besides that I do think I gained a lot from it because I got to practice both speaking and listening at the same time. Karen was very friendly. One thing I do think I would have done was prepare more.

Presentational Speaking

Vanessa and I had to do our oral exam through the phone. I think we did a overall good job. I just wish we had more time to practice outside of the day we did this. We did a lot of projects during this semester and had to share them with students, I realized I never got much feed back and I do wish I had.

Presentational Writing

In this class during the semester we had a lot of projects where we had to write about a certain topic. We wrote about clothing, art, and history. During this project I did it talking about history within Puerto Rico and described my experience as well as some things that I did. I think this was my favorite project through the semester because I got to share my experience about the things I learned in the trip.

I think one thing that helped overall when it came to writing is that we were able to do two rough drafts before turning it in. The teacher looked over it and made corrections as you can see in the picture above. I do think it would have been cool to switch with classmates and have them make corrections than the teacher look at both of the corrections.

Interpretive Listening

In Talk Abroad I spoke with Karen both times. The first conversation was about clothing and the second was about history. I was unable to upload an example of this however it is saved in the Talk Abroad website so I can look at it in the future. I also had to listen and practice within the class when it came to the teacher as well as the students. We had a lot of things in common, like the same amount of siblings, having dogs, we even enjoyed the same major! She also helped me pronounce certain words when I did mess up so it was a good learning experience and practice outside of class.

I sometimes struggled when it came to listening just because I was not used to it. I had a break from my first two Spanish classes and coming into this one. Once I realized that I struggled a little bit I did end up listening to more examples to practice. I also took the teachers recommendation and listened to songs I liked in Spanish. I learned the words to this specific song.

Interpretive Reading

We had to do homework every other night on lingro learning. This is just one of the many examples of the homework. Sometimes we had to match, speak, read, correct, and do multiple choice/ true and false questions. I liked the true and false and multiple choice more than just reading and answering and typing out the answers.

I liked reading for the most part because I understood it more compared to listening. I also got to practice it a lot because all the homework was in Spanish. Sometimes I did struggle when it came to new chapters but overall if you make flashcards and do the homework and context clues you can understand.

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