Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Throughout this course, we learned about the different Latin American cultures and their differences between our own cultures.

This helped me to understand more about how society in Latin American countries functions, and how different certain values can be to certain people. This helped be further understand the true scale of my worldview. It was confusing at first, but I was eventually able to understand.

Engaging in Communities

Working as a team is a quintessential part of efficient work, and this class allowed me to practice it many times. Partner assignments were common, ranging from having a normal conversation in Spanish to asking questions about school and each other’s schedules. In the video below, myself (left) and my classmate, Walter (right), can be seen participating in one such group activity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Smr_dfoio

I was always looking to help those in need, so when a classmate did not have a partner and still needed to complete the assignment, I volunteered to do it with them. That video can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Osi8bgOok8

Interpersonal Communication

Both in and out of the classroom, Spanish was a great tool to use in both conversation and literature. Understanding Spanish phrases and words helped me pick up more Spanish literature and music, as I felt more connected to it through understanding its true meanings.

Not every useful interaction involving Spanish was intentional, however; many times I ended up being involved in conversation with someone who did not have English as their first language, and my knowledge of Spanish allowed them to speak more freely without feeling restricted behind a blatant language barrier.

Presentational Speaking

For the class, we had to do presentations to show our Spanish speaking in action. Usually this was through talking about school or our hobbies in recordings, one of which can be found below. In this recording, I was assigned to discuss different places around my college campus and give brief descriptions about them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-k9aCjaGRU

It was challenging at first having to man a camera while trying to remember the proper wording and grammar, but with multitasking as a strong suit of mine I persevered. In comparison to my classmates, I was specifically good at pronunciation, remembering the proper accents and tones for each word. If I had the opportunity to do it different, I would have attempted to describe more places.

Presentational Writing

A significant portion of our assignments involved typed or written responses to questions, this could be anything from what is your name to what are the attributes of someone you admire. One of such assignments was for us to write an introduction about ourselves for our fellow classmates, mine can be found below:

The assignment was not that difficult, as I knew most of the words already from conversational learning. At the time my spelling and grammar had some issues, but I was able to iron it out over the course of the class through trial, error, and a few questions for the professor. So the next time I get the opportunity to write something like this again I will be able to write more thoroughly and detailed.

Interpretive Listening

The majority of our time in the class was spent listening to our professor. Our professor preferred to teach the course mostly using Spanish, so the class had to pick up on remembering certain words quickly to stay on track. While it was difficult, this allowed me to slowly understand specific patterns and more fluently deliver answers to the professor’s questions. I found it interesting how different people speak the same language so differently, as many people spoke Spanish in such unique ways that it felt like an entirely different language. Overall this helped me further grow in conversational Spanish, and helped me understand that certain dialects of Spanish can speak very differently.

Interpretive Reading

While reading was not the forefront of what we did in the course, it was certainly a point of significance. As previously mentioned when discussing my writing, I had some initial issues with spelling and grammar. These reading opportunities played a major role in helping me succeed at my writing skills, as they were the exact resources I needed to further understand my writing. By the end of the course, I was able to