Instructions
Exploring Culture
To me the one big difference between these two cultures are the way we live. In Spain for example they live in smaller house with large sums of people.
When I studied about their families, everybody is so close. So when learning about how they live it helps me have a better understanding on how they have such an importance on family. Each family member basically has their own role and are bought up to cherish each other. I have never really seen different parts of the world under different stereotypes but everybody no matter where they are in the world have their own way of life. We had one assignment where we had to study the role everybody in the family has, the one thing I found weird was that typically the Father of the family is supposed to take care of the family financially. But typically American families don’t all have something specific just are accommodated to what’s around them.
Engaging in Communities
It is important to engaging in your community and be able to get to know everyone around you. The main importance comes when you’re getting to know the global community especially with our world evolving and others starting to come to the US. This isn’t just your world anymore it’s becoming home to others where they come for safety.
Reflect on your experience and participation in these communities. Include artifacts such as photos, audio/video clips, etc.
Interpersonal Communication
Talk Abroad is a wonderful program, that was created for Spanish learning students to experience having conversations with others that grew up speaking it. The people that are getting paid to have these conversations understand that we are just beginners and will not know everything right away.
With the first Talk Abroad conversation that we were supposed to have a chickened out because I was afraid of not knowing how to reply. But my first conversation was with my professor which wasn’t to hard all I had to do was talk about myself and describe my family. This last Talk Abroad conversation that I had was about everything, I had a hard time with replying right away but my partner was very understanding and accommodated to my knowledge. When it comes to the discussion boards I looked forward to doing them, I gave me and opportunity to learn more about the culture and learn about the differences the US has from Spanish states. Next time I go to learn about Spanish I will look more into the past and how our two cultures came together.
Presentational Speaking
One of the speaking presentations that I have done this semester is having a conversation with one of my classmates. We had to talk about activities that we do or have done. In the beginning we start off with introductions and going straight into the topic. We have also had mini projects where we had to record our self-giving descriptions about stuff from meal ideas and about our family.
We had to re-start about 5 times because at first, we couldn’t figure out how to get it to record but after that to only issue we really had was on both in with us getting confused about what to say. As time went on and I had to complete more assignments figuring out the recording became easier, but I personally still have some issues that I have to work through when it comes to pronouncing words. I believe that I am great at remembering the vocabulary but when it comes to creating sentences and have a conversation my mind always goes blank. Next time I am giving the chance to excel in this specific language I will take using everything in the world around me more seriously.
Presentational Writing
We got to create some type of form that informed people about mental and/or physical health. I chose to do a pamphlet about depression in college students.
When doing this one specific assignment I learned stuff that could not only help others but me to. You never know what you are going to come upon unless you keep on going. Now with this activity I didn’t have much trouble but only when it came to finding everything that I wanted to use in Spanish. We didn’t have many writing that we had to do so if I was to overcome something I would say that it was knowing the right words to use. This is probably one of the easiest and fun things we have had that we could come up with to relate to us personally.
Interpretive Listening
The throughout this semester we have had to listen to stuff while doing lingo learning, test and even discussion boards. We have had to listen to people having conversations to just simple words and figuring out the spelling.
I would say that my favorite part of listening to people during this was this last assignment we had to do that dealt with little kids talking about what they wanted to be when they grow up. But the purpose of this assignment was to talk about the troubles we have when it comes to getting a job when it comes to gender. The only difficulty I really had was when it came to listening to a whole conversation and picking out certain verbs and conjunctions. I haven’t necessarily overcome my troubles, but I am slowly growing, learning a whole new language isn’t easy for most.
Interpretive Reading
I haven’t really used Spanish outside of class like I should be doing, but when doing class work, I talk to myself to help things stick within my brain. Along with some recordings that we have had to do, talking about different subjects.
One of the main things that has been challenging for me since the beginning of the semester is being consistent when talking and not having to stop to and think about what needs to be said. I know the vocabulary but when it comes to creating sentences and having a conversation, I always drawl blanks. Throughout all of this I found learning about the culture and the different things they do the most interesting. Learning Spanish is more than just words but also how people of that culture operate and live day to day life.