Exploring Culture
As a child of immigrant parents from two different cultures, I have always been more understanding and aware of varying culture differences and perspectives. My mother is from Spain and my father is from Guyana. Growing up with my mother I have been introduced and immersed in the Hispanic culture from day one. From the food to the dances and the music, I was in it all. Hearing my mom talk about her experiences growing up it mad me more aware of culture in Spain. As I got older and spent more time with new friends and on social media I was introduced and learned more about the Latin part of the Hispanic culture and although they are from two different parts of the world, they are, in some aspects, very similar.
Engaging in Communities
Engaging in both your immediate and global community can broaden your horizons when it comes to differing perspectives and opinions. Being engaged can help you become more aware of situations around you that you may not have noticed or cared about before. It can make you into a better person to know about cultures, identities, issues that affect those around you, even if they do not affect you personally.
Interpersonal Communication
This past semester I completed two TalkAbroad interviews with a lady from Mexico. She was very nice and I did both my interviews with her. The TalkAbroad assignment helped me become more confident in speaking Spanish and helped me become more comfortable speaking in Spanish for a long amount of time. Due to my growing confidence in speaking Spanish, I have begun to speak it more around the house with my mother.
After each TalkAbroad assignment I was more comfortable participating in class because I was more comfortable with the material. The main difficulty I had speaking Spanish was my pronunciation but with more speaking came with pronouncing words better and better each time. I also got better at understanding Spanish; I have always been able to understand Spanish when spoken, but now I was able to understand more and formulate my own response in Spanish whereas before I could not come up with a response.
Presentational Writing
This semester I completed two written compositions in Spanish. The first composition was an interview between two people about fashion trends at school and the second composition was a description of a restaurant and their menu.
The first composition was difficult because I was not that good at writing sentences in Spanish and had difficulties putting the right words together to form a proper sentence. The second composition was much easier and I had little difficulty putting the words together to make a coherent sentence. I think I did better the second time because I understood the material more than the first time I wrote it.
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