Reflections

Exploring Culture

Because I am a Chicana, I am already accustomed to all of the cultural elements that we spoke about in class. I was not presented with any misconceptions or stereotypes that needed clarification in class, most likely due to my already immersion in the culture. Other than food, there were no products that I used or purchased that had any Hispanic themes, so I was not able to experience any major cultural shift through that avenue. The only specialty practice that genuinely left an impression on me were the TalkAbroad conversations. Unfortunately, due to our limited vocabulary, the topics that my TalkAbroad partner and I discussed did not showcase much of a difference in culture. In fact, my second talk partner enjoyed American fast food even more than me.

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in your immediate community is important, because it builds a stronger community, which can help build a better future. Being exposed to other cultures is a highly fruitful because you can not only come to understand someone’s point of view, but also perhaps find parts of the culture (such as foods, music, and clothing) that you really enjoy. Personally, I greatly enjoy Mesoamerican civilizations and structures, and went through a phase where I frequently tried to travel to explore more sites.

Interpersonal Communication

The TalkAbroad activity was terrifying for me, because I have bad social anxiety. That being said, both of my speakers were really lovely and made me feel very comfortable. They spoke at a rate that I could understand and made sure to really enunciate things, or helped me whenever I tripped up and mispronounced words. My speaking partners were also patient in waiting for me to get sentences out, which was a little difficult at first. With the first TalkAbroad, I did not know what to expect so it was much more difficult. The second conversation I had, I was better prepared and was less nervous and able to engage in the conversation more successfully.

Presentational Speaking

The first proyecto of the semester was a presentation about our family members. I do not have a recording of this as it was early in the semester. Most of the opportunities for presentational speaking were small exercises, not large presentations such as the first proyecto. I excel at describing family members’ traits but occasionally get a few of the family titles mixed up, such as the meanings of “suegra” and “cunada”. Public speaking is really difficult in general, and worse when you’re nervous so I forgot a few things when I was up at the front of the class. Speaking in class while practicing sentences and vocabulary was the most beneficial in overcoming being as nervous as I was the first time.

Presentational Writing

During this semester, I had to create a fitness flyer, showcasing a yoga class. Another proyecto involved writing our first major paragraph. I did not create any additional materials in Spanish outside of class. The biggest difficulty with any of the proyectos was working within the means provided. This meant no outside vocabulary, which made completing thoughts sort of complicated. I’m still struggling to write paragraphs with sentences that are cohesive and not disjointed, but I imagine it will get better with continued practice.

Proyecto-2

Interpretive Listening

The interpretive listening activities I did this semester were primarily in Contresena/Lingo Learning. The most difficult aspect of using this website was that some of the speakers have kind of intense accents or in particular, there was one reoccurring speaker that had a lisp but still spoke faster than the other speakers. All of these traits adding up made it really difficult to understand when spoken at the pace they’ve chosen. I overcame this somewhat by listening to the audio clips over and over again, but the thing that helped the most was when the program actually showed the text script for whatever the speaker was saying. This allowed me to carefully read and pick apart words to practice and comprehend. I have the ability to understand sentences if they’re spoken at a pace I can keep up with.

Interpretive Reading

The only websites I have visited this semester for Spanish are Spanishdict.com and the Lingo Learning website. Otherwise, I haven’t engaged in any articles, stories, websites, or additional resources that were in Spanish due to not having the necessity or happenstance to do so. The most challenging aspect of using each of these resources was the overabundance of information on Spanishdict, and admittedly the terrible programming of Lingo Learning. I overcame this difficulty by printing out my vocabulary to practice or making flashcards, and avoiding Lingo Learning as much as possible outside of homework.

Contrasena_10_Gramatica_I

Modes of Communication link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Eemz_Rr-GzU5VS9zA1AZtI1MTbztESIg/view