Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Reflection

Reflection-Spanish

Artifacts

Composition 1: Mi Familia

Composition-1

Composition 2: Los deportes y pasatiempos

Composition-2

Exploring Culture

To gain better understanding about the Spanish culture, we were assigned to watch “Flash Cultura” videos on different lessons about Spanish speaking countries. To follow up, we would be given questions on the what we learned and heard in the videos.

Watching the Flash Cultura videos helped better my understanding of the differences between English and Spanish-speaking countries. There’s way for formality and values in the Spanish culture but there are many differences in which each Spanish-speaking country may do certain things. While learning about the cultures, it changed my view I had by opening my eyes to the different perspectives and life styles of people in Spanish-speaking countries. For example, I found it interest in the they many argentines and other Spanish speakers greet each other. In many of these places, it’s customary to greet friends and family members with a kiss on the cheek, even if they don’t already know each other before hand. This does very based on gender as well as the country but it surely gave me a different perspective of how comfortable Spanish speakers are with each others presence. I learned many Spanish speakers are very social and don’t worry about comfort zones cause they are very pleasant people who love getting together and socializing.

Engaging in Communities

When learning a new language, it is important to acknowledge and respect the community in which you are learning about. Having the opportunity to engage in the community and socialize with people within help with grounding yourself in the language and culture and showing the value you have for wanting to be apart of that community.

Interpersonal Communication

In this class, we have done orals where we would speak to each other, answering questions or giving descriptions. We have introduced ourselves, talked about our families, and explained what we liked to do around campus. There has been discussion boards where we would answer questions about ourselves and our families as well.

In our oral communication activities, we were given partners to practice our communication of introducing ourselves, talking about our families, and what we like to do in our free time. These activities helped with bettering my listening and communication skills. I was able to interpret what a person was saying in Spanish and engage in conversation by contributing to the topic. When we first started the oral communication activities, it was difficult to understand and quickly process what the language in my head. There were troubles in translation of words and knowing what a sentence was stating, since it’s not translating directly like English is. To help better my listening skills, I would pay close attention to the pronunciation while repeating words in my head to help with my memorization. This also helped better my communication skills. I would organize questions and answers together to understand the proper way to ask and answer questions formally and informally. The orals were very quick and beneficial to help my in interpersonal communication.

Presentational Writing

In our compositions, we’ve written about our families and sport/past-time activities at Old Dominion University. In the form of a letters, we use descriptive adjectives to help describe looks, personalities, and activities.

When writing our first compositions, we were given the task to write about our families. This helped better my writing skills in using adjectives to describe what someone looks like, what they do, and what they like. Before, it was tough understanding the proper formatting of sentences using descriptive and possessive adjectives but writing this descriptive composition bettered my skills in formatting sentences properly. The proper use of nouns, verbs, and adjective together was difficult. It was struggle to understanding where to use which and when. In our second composition, I had to write about the sports and activities favored by students at Old Dominion. When writing this, I’ve notice a better change in understanding how to format sentences correctly with the use of masculine and feminine.

Interpretive Listening

In our text book, we were given activities to listen to Flash Cultura videos. In these videos, they would give us lessons of Spanish culture in different Spanish-speaking countries.

In videos that would be presented to us, we would learn about the Spanish culture in different Spanish-speaking countries as well as watch a conversation between students while they are talking about school. When listening to native Spanish speakers have basic conversations, I found it challenging to follow what each person was saying directly since they are know to speak fast and swiftly through their sentences. It was complicated to understand certain words in between but by either slowing down the video or using subtitles, it became easier to follow along in the conversation. I found it interesting how friendly almost every Spanish speaker is, they are very genuine people who love interaction and conversation. With each activity, I’ve furthered by knowledge of the culture and language. They helped me improve my listening abilities to be able to understand and engage in conversation between me and another person.