Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

In Spanish 102, we were given access to a virtual textbook known as Aventuras, Fifth Edition. This textbook offers a vast amount of insight on Hispanic cultures. In this second semester of Spanish I learned about open markets, fruits and vegetables native to Hispanic countries, and how cool siestas are! To supplement the textbook, we also had assignments throughout the course in Blackboard that had us do research on various Hispanic cultures.

I found myself fairly intrigued and fascinated by the research that was asked of us. We did research about Hispanic music, food, and landmarks. While it’s not the same as actually visiting and experiencing different Hispanic countries, I found myself feeling like I was missing out. Hispanic music has so much passion and love behind it. I’d say it’s safe to say the same thing about their food! Every single piece of culture I was exposed to made me wishful to one day experience all of this culture.

Engaging in Communities

Being engaged with a community makes us feel as though we are a part of something. Community offers opportunities to connect with people, which we all need as social beings! Connecting with people allows personal growth, which in turn helps us reach our goals. Community also helps make us feel safe and secure. Knowing that we belong somewhere and are able to seek others for help is just one of the reasons community is so important.

In this course, several discussion boards were assigned to us. Having discussions with fellow students truly brought community to this Spanish course. It allowed us to share our thoughts and bounce ideas around.

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad is this amazing service that offers students from all over to practice several different languages with native speakers. You start off by choosing a partner, and don’t worry, every one has a profile singling their hobbies and backgrounds so if you see someone you think you’d get along with all you have to do is select them.

In this course, we were assigned topics to discuss so there wasn’t too much liberty on conversation topics. Regardless, I was taken aback at how helpful I found TalkAbroad to be. Conversing with a native speaker allowed me to gain feedback about my own vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and accent. I found that my accent and pronunciation weren’t too bad, however my vocabulary and grammar needed a lot of attention. I didn’t have too much trouble understanding the speakers, but I did struggle speaking to them. Wanting to be able to speak at their comprehension was somewhat of a stressor. The only way this will improve is if I continue practicing with native speakers.

Presentational Speaking

Throughout the course there were multiple “entrevistas”, which involved having a conversation in Spanish with another student. We were given a scenario and had to create dialogue that would match the scenario. I felt that I got a lot of practice when preparing for the interviews because these interviews were proctored by our professor It was also done live so we received immediate feedback. Receiving live feedback is something I found rather helpful because it made it possible to ask specific questions on what needs to be improved on. For example, if I was struggling pronouncing a word, I’d get feedback on how to pronounce it correctly. Having this type of feedback reinforces my learning process and help me remember things better.

On top of the interviews that were conducted, we completed assignments on VoiceThread. The VoiceThread assignments had us listen to a question in Spanish and we would have to record a response in Spanish. These were a bit less stressful because we weren’t required to perform in front of a live audience, however I did find myself wishing for live feedback. Waiting to get input when learning a language can be excruciating!

Presentational Writing

In this course, I felt that a lot of the writing was done in our homework and tests. We did, however, have several compositions that were assigned to us. They all consisted of different requirements. Our first composition required us to look at a grid of different photos and describe the actions that were being conducted. The responses had to be done in Spanish. I felt that this particular assignment allowed me to make visual connections with the Spanish vocabulary. It also allowed me to practice my spelling. I find the use of accent marks to be challenging because I have to remember where they go and when to add them when conjugating. I believe I have a long way to go when it comes to my Spanish spelling abilities.

Fortunately, there were many opportunities to practice spelling and grammar. VHL offers a hefty amount of practice. When submitting exercises, you receive feedback on what has to be fixed. Having that type of feedback really pushed me to be more cautious and attentive when creating sentences. VHL doesn’t flat out give you the answer, just informs you that it’s incorrect. Whenever I had issues getting the correct answer, I would refer to the textbook and adjust my sentences accordingly.

Interpretive Listening

There was quite a lot of interpretive listening sprinkled though out this course. We had homework, tests, VoiceThreads and VHL assignments that all required some sort of interpretive listening.

A majority of the listening assignments required actual comprehension of the Spanish language. It wasn’t as simple as just listening and regurgitating the same thing back. We were given audio clips that consisted of stories and had to answer questions about the story. Questions would be multiple choice or true/false. Despite being able to playback audio clips, I struggled with some of the listening assignments. There were times where playing back audio wasn’t enough for me to understand the speaker and I wouldn’t do to well on those assignments. Since I consider myself more of a visual and hands on learner, I wish we were given transcripts with the audio. I believe that having that in place would allow me to create a visual and auditory connection.

Interpretive Reading

The thing we did most in this course was read Spanish. Every single assignment required some reading, which created more opportunity for comprehension. Most of the reading assignments were found in VHL and each assignment would have different requirements. Some assignments would include pictures to assist in understanding context while others made you depend on your current understanding of Spanish. Topics included in our readings involved incredibly interesting topics such as the culture of Peru or fruits native to Latin America.

While I didn’t have too much trouble when completing reading assignments, I would still have moments where I didn’t fully comprehend some words. Whenever I came across this issue, I would refer to the vocabulary tools in VHL. In order to supplement my learning even further, I read out loud. Even if I wasn’t sure about pronunciation I still did my best to get through the readings. Each of the reading assignments allowed me to further build on my Spanish comprehension encouraging me to build my vocabulary, spelling, and grammar.