SPAN 101

Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

In Spanish 101, my exposure to Hispanic culture was done primarily through vignettes in our textbook, Aventuras. Contained within each chapter are short passages detailing specific cultural practices that differ in some ways from those I practice here in America. Likewise, I used discussion board posts to research Hispanic art and culture.

A screen capture from the Aventuras, 5th Ed.

Cultural articles such as this one–explaining the prevalence of sports in countries such as Spain and Argentina, and the rivalry of their prominent fĂștbol teams–provided a window into a culture that had previously been unknown to myself. A similar cultural section taught me that unlike in America, where personal space is valued and observed during greetings, kisses on the cheeks and hugs are common forms of greeting in Hispanic cultures–sometimes even regardless of gender. These were one of the many things that taught me to view Hispanic culture as one of compassion and intimacy.

Interpersonal Communication

Three times during Spanish 101 was I given the assignment to prepare an oral conversation between myself and a partner, twice with two of my classmates and once with my professor. This, besides practicing with a language tutor, was the main source of interpersonal practice I received throughout the semester.

Screen capture from Feb 22 2021 Spanish 101 Session

Though I enjoy language learning, conversation skills are something I have always struggled with. Outside of the classroom, I encounter very few opportunities to test out the language I was learning, which is how I knew that I would have to put the practice in this semester if I wanted to improve. This video was from one of our first oral conversations, back in February. One issue I remember having going into this assignment was pronunciation and, by an extent, speaking clearly while remembering to pronounce words correctly. I practiced repeating vocab words in my textbook and reciting the questions we were given until I had memorized them and could read them without having to look at the spelling, and felt confident that I could carry on a conversation clearly. The next thing I have to work on is learning how to make my speech sound more natural.

Presentational Speaking

One presentational speaking activity I participated in this year was the recitation of my research assignment on four Spanish painters.

This somewhat overlaps with that of exploring culture, as though it is not in Spanish, this presentation originated from a discussion board post in which I was tasked with exploring the lives, cultural significance, and artistic impact of four Spanish artists. One challenge I faced going into this presentation was remembering to speak clearly and loudly, though unlike other public speaking experiences, I think I was more comfortable with this presentation.

Presentational Writing

This semester, I completed a number of activities related to presentational writing, two of which being compositions written entirely in Spanish containing over 80 words of learned vocabulary.

composition-2-rough-draft-alex-jackson

The embedded PDF file is a copy of my second Spanish composition, in which we had to describe our families. I chose this composition over my last one as I think this demonstrates how I am best able to create complex sentences using only vocabulary I learned in Chapter 3. Unlike speaking, I feel very confident in my writing skills, as a majority of my language learning experience has consisted of writing and reading practice. However, since Spanish is a language of accents, one common error I make when constructing compositions in Spanish is According to the feedback on this assignment, the only error I had made was not ending the email with a salutation and a question for the responder!

Interpretive Listening

Outside of oral conversations, my interpretive listening practice consisted of seeking out outside resources to listen to and interpret. Thus, much of my interpretive listening practice came in the form of watching Spanish language movies and listening to music.

Digan Lo Que Digan – Nina Pilots (from Youtube)

One of the most challenging parts of watching Spanish movies and listening to music is that not everything is exactly tailored to your skill level. However, there are plenty of shows/movies/songs aimed towards children. These contain far easier vocabulary but are written in shorter and less complex sentence structures. Out of those two options, I chose to use movies and songs that were a bit outside of my skill level, but provided me insight as to how vocabulary I learned in class are used in casual, every day conversations and in creative Spanish writing.

Interpretive Reading

During this semester, I used a variety of resources to practice interpretive reading skills. Inside of class, this consisted mainly of VHL assignment in which we had to read a short passage and then answer questions (short answer, true or false, etc.) related to those questions. Outside of class, one of my favorite resources was a site that wrote short Spanish news articles meant for beginning level readers related to popular current events.

spanish-article

Embedded above is an excerpt from Hola Qué Pasa, an online site that publishes easy to understand news articles and recordings of interesting topics, such as pop culture, politics, etc. I find these to be especially helpful, as where movies and songs demonstrate how vocabulary words are used in creative settings, news articles like these demonstrate how the same words can be used in informative writing. Likewise, these articles contain phrases and quizzes for people to test themselves on after completing the article.