Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
Paying attention to the culture exploration assignments on lingo hub really helped me understand different types of cultures not just in different countries, but how they relate to each other overall. For example, one unit discussed immigration which brought up really important discussions, and how different cultures have been affected by immigration issues.
Since I am Hispanic, I am somewhat familiar with the different cultures in Latin America and aware of the practices. However, the Culture throughout my family was never really passed down to me so there’s a lot of things that I still did not know that I had the opportunity to learn in this class. These products and practices changed my worldview because it allowed me to connect better with the people in my culture and enjoy the things that I have been missing out on such as meaningful conversations. Having the opportunity to look at these perspectives, helps me understand that sometimes these representations are not so apparent in America or at least where I live. Hispanic culture has become influential in America, but it still seems that there is a lack of recognition for the culture itself rather than what it can bring.
Engaging in Communities
The people are the ones that make the language as meaningful as it is, which is why it is so important that we seriously engage with these media communities in order to understand the more intimate part of their language, so that we can use it better ourselves.
During my first talk abroad in Spanish, so too, I got to talk with my partner about our families and places that we like to go to enjoy nature and all the things around us. Specifically in this talk abroad assignment my partner also had family in Florida like I did and they were similar characteristics to our culture and family, helping us understand and get to know each other better.
Talk abroad Uno: Familia y El Parque Nacional (5:30-6:30)
Interpersonal Communication
The TalkAbroad assignments were some of the best experiences that I could have that really tested and challenged my Spanish to see where I was, and how fluently I could carry on conversation with the native speaker. The second assignment was a little more difficult as my partner spoke quicker, but I feel that it was a great challenge for me and showed that I should probably practice with speed a little bit more and work on comprehending quicker.
Besides the TalkAbroad assignments, the best place that I engage in interpersonal communication is at work. While I do not work there anymore, while I was there, my boss was Colombian and was a native speaker. I would often ask her to challenge me with Spanish and she would also challenge me spontaneously. Sometimes when I wasn’t expecting it, she would ask me something in Spanish, and I would do my best to understand her. With customers I also try to be as helpful as I can when understanding them, but I am still shy when it comes to speaking with them.
Presentational Speaking
An example of a presentation on speaking activity, I did inside of my Spanish course is our TalkAbroad assignments. This required us to have conversations online with native speakers related to our subjects.
The first conversation I did went pretty smoothly as the concepts that I wanted to say in Spanish weren’t as complicated, but the second conversation was a lot more challenging. This conversation talked about history,perspectives, and art. These types of topics can always be complicated to describe. However, I was able to test my ability to use the imperfect tense versus the preterite tense in conversations
TalkAbroad Dos: El Arte y La Historia
Presentational Writing
During this course, I had to write several pieces in Spanish, whether they were scripts for projects or stories, I had to tell based off of what I comprehend from a sample piece. These assignments were not as challenging for me, as writing seems to be easier than speaking, but they were still always challenging but it was really fun writing stories in Spanish.
One activity required me to continue on a story based on a set of images. The easy part was creating the story, but the hardest part was figuring out how I wanted to tell the story. For example, the artifact below is part of our unit 13, which talked about a story with the girl who looks to find her father in Cuba. To overcome the difficulties with writing the story in Spanish, I tried to break it up into small sentences and simple statements, so that I could clearly show the grammar and vocabulary. I’m hoping that in the future, my comprehension becomes better, so that I can know I only read a story and write it more accurately, but be able to enjoy it more since I understand it better.
Interpretive Listening
Outside of my Spanish class an example of interpretive, listening that I engaged in, was at my work environment and in public. I usually try to listen to conversations in Spanish around me and try to understand what they’re saying so that I am getting used to how it’s used naturally rather than in a classroom setting.
This recording is a Spanish dub for an English movie, I am not sure which movie it is. This recording is clear, but the hardest part for me to understand was when he started speaking super fast! I could not understand several of the words he was saying, and I continue to struggle with separating the words from each other if they aren’t clearly distinct.
Interpretive Reading
Many activities throughout this course required us to do online research in Spanish, in order to find information about certain countries and news in regards to immigration, art or other events that are going on currently.
The article that I attached is news from Mexico in response to the United States and their plans to dealing with the cartels in Mexico. Well, I don’t know a lot of the military were political vocabulary in Spanish, able to understand certain verbs and adjectives in order to get a gist of what the situation is. I found the political perspective of Mexico to be interesting, but also not unexpected, as I assume, most countries have a certain level of national interest, and the cartels are a hot topic between Mexico and the United States.