Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

One of the things I learned about this semester was the Tomatina Festival held in Spain each year. It is a festival where participants throw tomatoes at each other, just for entertainment value. I had never heard about this tradition before or anything similar.

Learning about this festival showed me the carefree attitude of the Spaniards. It was so fun to watch them get so much joy from a food fight. It changed my view because it made me realize that not every tradition has to have a serious reason or long, arduous history behind it. Some traditions are just for being carefree and joyous with those around you.

Engaging in Communities

It is extremely important to immerse yourself into not only your own community and culture, but also into ones that are different from your own. I believe that you will not grow as an individual if you only see things from your own perspective and never put yourself into someone else’s shoes.

This semester I had a limited time of engaging with persons in other communities due to the global pandemic. I briefly talked about the Mexican culture with my TalkAbroad partner, Stephany. She spoke to me about Día De Los Muertos festival and it was really interesting to hear from her about it. I have heard about it before, but not from someone who has actually participated in it before. I love that they celebrate life and death just the same.

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad is a tool we used twice during this semester. It is a video chatting service where you may have a conversation with someone across the world in their native language. I also participated in discussion boards as well as breakout sessions where I spoke with a partner on a variety of subjects.

The most difficult part that I encountered about TalkAbroad is that I could only prepare questions, I could not really prepare responses. If we veered off topic, I had to quickly come up with a response that would make sense to my partner. I believe I got better at that in my second conversation and was able to give quicker responses. I excelled at connecting with my conversation partner because I read through their bios and made sure to ask questions and talk about things that they were interested in. I found it really interesting that some of their favorite television shows and music are originally in English.

Presentational Writing

This semester we had to complete two compositions. The first one we had to pretend to write a medical report for two patients and the second we had to pretend to be a landlord and tell the tenant what they can/cannot do in the apartment we are renting to them.

In the period in between the two compositions, I learned better grammar and to pay closer attention to what I am writing. My biggest mistake in the rough draft of my first composition is that I rushed and it hurt me in the way that I got a lot of things incorrect that were simple. What became more difficult is trying not to repeat myself or make the same sentence structure over and over. What I could do better next time is diversify my sentences and give more detail in the narrative.

Interpretive Listening

One of the interpretive listening activities we completed this semester was that we had to watch a clip from the movie The Orphan and then answer yes or no questions regarding that clip. We also had to do something similar in VHL (our homework cite) where we would have to watch a video on a different culture and answer questions on it.

The movie clip activity was really fun and educational. It gave us a way to hear the language naturally, and not in a way that was catered toward learners. It also made us pay closer attention because it was an intense scene and I personally was extremely invested in the plot. I thought this was the most helpful listening activity and I enjoyed it over the VHL activities due to it being a real-life example. It has become a bit easier over time to grasp what is being said in clips like these. I can pick out more words and string them together in my head quicker than I have been able to in the past. My favorite crime show had a Spanish-speaking individual in an episode I watched recently and I was able to understand most of what she said without subtitles! I found that really cool.

Interpretive Reading

Most of the interpretive readings given this year were through VHL. We were instructed to read a piece of text and then to answer questions about it on the next screen. It normally was about culture.

The most challenging thing for me about these activities was the fact that it was a lot of text at once. It was easy for me to get lost and distracted in what I was reading, so I would have to read it over again for comprehension. I overcame this difficulty by taking the reading one paragraph at a time and writing notes as I went. My favorite parts of the readings were the ones about architecture because I think the Spanish style of building is very beautiful. I have grown with each assignment because I have been able to read these large paragraphs quicker than I have before and with better comprehension.