Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
One of the main ways that I explore Latinx and Spanish Cultures is through media. I listen to a lot of Spanish music and follow several native speakers on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.
Social Media has helped me to better understand values and attitudes in the Hispanic culture as well as my own by learning more about the world through their perspective. The things that I have learned have not challenged my world view though they have definitely given me a new perspective on some things. Project Pulso has articles about Hispanic Holidays as well as how Hispanic cultures celebrate international holidays such as New Year and Christmas. I honestly do not place credence in stereotypes so I have not had to work through any, I simply try to listen to the voice of a people group and acknowledge that everyone is different regardless of what culture they belong to.
Engaging in Communities
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I was unable to engage in either my local or global community this semester. See Spanish 121 for examples of how I have in the past.
Interpersonal Communication
I have had multiple conversations with classmates in Spanish this semester. During class almost every time we meet we have conversations to practice speaking. Again due to Covid I have not talked to people outside of my class very much.
Each of these assignments has helped me to grow as a Spanish speaker because I have been actively practicing the language. There have also been some grammar and pronunciation challenges that I have had to be intentional to focus on and fix. I have learned a lot of new vocabulary through the necessity of needing a word and not knowing to, so I had to look it up. I think the biggest thing I need to do is practice more so that my anxiety is less because I am so worried that I will mess up that I am unfocused and this leads to me making more mistakes.
Presentational Speaking
I had three main presentational speaking projects this semester. Below is one and I may add another later. In this project, I researched and presented on a museum in Spain. I think that all in all I did pretty well on these videos. I did multiple takes to get the pronunciation to where I was happy with it and this was after I had poured over the grammar for well over an hour each time. The main thing that I would do differently is that I would get better equipment and software to make a better final product on the production side.
Presentational Writing
This semester I wrote a short story about an event in my life that I have since realized I am not ready to talk about yet. I also made an info-graph on PTSD, or as it is put in Spanish TEPT. I also will post some captions on my social media presence in Spanish if it is applicable. I think that having to sit down and right required me to more think in Spanish rather than think in English and translate in my head. As time goes on this is a progressively easier thing for me to do. The main difficulty is my limited vocabulary and. having to remember words that I know and also learn new words. I think that the main thing with this is going to be continued practice and proficiency training.
23710_2021-02-01-150631_285Interpretive Listening
This semester we did some interpretive listening though not a ton. The majority of it was in Homework assignments when we would have to answer questions based on a recording that we listened to. I have done some interpretive listening outside of class when scrolling social media, coming across videos where someone is speaking Spanish and doesn’t have captions on, trying to understand what they are saying. I do fairly well with this and while I do not understand every word, I understand enough to enjoy the video. Though, sometimes I have to watch the video more than once.
Interpretive Reading
This semester in class we read El Eclipse by Augusto Monterroso. It is a short story about a Spanish Friar who attempts to convince Native Americans in Latin America that he is magical and can cause an eclipse, though they already knew it was happening and kill him anyway. The story contained a lot of new vocabulary which was difficult though I was able to understand the story. I think that the story told in “El Eclipse” is a timeless tale of colonizers assuming that Natives are ignorant and less than and being proven wrong. Over the summer I hope to find more short stories to read to increase my interpretive reading skills.
Eclipse