Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
The practices I used to help me gain understanding of Spanish cultural is basically just being open minded and listening and viewing the language and culture through homework and videos.
My reflection on the Spanish culture helped me understand the importance of understanding different people and respecting other cultures. Being more open minded challenged my view on not just different cultures but on people themselves. I learned that everyone is different and that you should respect everyone and their beliefs and ways. I honestly thought that all south and central Americans spoke Spanish that they are all the same but I learned that it was not true and that everyone is different.
Engaging in Communities
I don’t really engage in my community here but back home in Nigeria I make sure my voice is heard with the influence I have back home on my community. I don’t really engage in the global community because I don’t feel like I would really impact the global community.
Interpersonal Communication
In Spanish 101 I was able to talk to my fellow classmates and professor about myself, family, and where I am from. I was able to get positive feedback on discussion board as well from my classmates. VHL helped me to practice speaking in Spanish much better.
Before taking this class I was a little nervous speaking in Spanish because I did not know how to do it, but after some weeks of practicing I began to understand Spanish and I was able to speak the language a little bit better. I spoke Spanish way better than how I thought I would be speaking it. Being able to ask questions from my classmates helped me a lot to understand Spanish words much better. So now I have a little bit of an understanding in Spanish.
It was difficult to really have a fluent conversation in Spanish, so I took everything that I have written and learned and practiced on them. It helped me improve my skills and made me become a little more fluent in Spanish. Every homework and quiz and practices we did in class really helped me a lot because I could take note from what I learned.
Presentational Speaking
I participated in Spanish speaking activities with my classmates during class and on our own time outside of class. I also got the chance to speak in Spanish with my teacher. We talked about ourselves, family, and our hometown.
The two interviews that we did in class was with a student and the professor. With the interview I did with my classmate we talked about ourselves and our personal life. I was really scared because I was not really good in speaking fluent in Spanish. My partner really helped me a lot to be able to speak and understand with each other. The interview was not as difficult a I thought. We practiced so that really helped, so when it came time to do the interview we just flew with it and did well. The interview with the professor was actually not that bad. I thought it would be worse but she actually made it easy for me. Whenever I was confused on things she made me to understand what she was talking about much more better. It really helped me throughout the interview as we was talking about Family. She advised me to study more and learn how to use the right vocab whenever I am speaking in Spanish. She helped me also increase my knowledge in Spanish and also my skills. I learned a lot from both interviews and they helped me get to where I am now.
Presentational Writing
In this class we completed two compositional writing assignments . In the writing assignments I talked about myself and my family.
In the first composition writing assignment I talked about myself. Basically telling the teacher about where I am from, how old I am, where I live, what school I attend and major I am taking, If I work and so on. It was difficult writing in Spanish but with the teachers help it became easy. She didn’t want a lot of writing anyways so it was easy just to get to half a page. In my second composition I talked about my family. It was not that bad as I learned from the first composition and it got easier as I kept writing. The teacher usually edits our draft so we would know what to change and work on for the final draft which really benefited me. In general these compositions helped me with writing in Spanish. I got to talk about myself and my family which was really nice to do.
Interpretive Listening
In Spanish class we listened to different conversation on VHL or in class. Than after we were given an assignment to basically answer questions that took place during the videos we had watched.
I listened to a lot of videos on the VHL. We were supposed to watch and listen to these videos than answer questions asked about them. It was very difficult to understand everything they were talking about but with the images and movement I could understand what they were talking about. They talked about family, sports, school and other things. I benefitted a lot from these videos, it helped me to understand Spanish culture much better.
Interpretive Reading
In Spanish class we listened to and read stories and newspapers on the VHL homework site. We read through the newspapers and watched stories that basically talked about Spanish culture and beliefs.
In Spanish class we looked at articles and stories than after reading and watching them we had to basically answer questions about what we have learned and what the article and story had talked about. It was really unclear reading and listening in Spanish but with images and movement I could understand what they were talking about a little. I found the culture of Spanish really interesting. It got me to open up on other cultures as well. I learned so much about the culture in such short time, it was amazing. I can read much better in Spanish than before and I have grown a lot with the help of my professor and students.
