Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Such as previous semester, students were given the opportunity to learn more of the culture from within various Spanish Speaking Countries. Within these readings, students were also tasked with assignments which challenged understanding within each cultural reading, as well as having the opportunity to partake in writing and verbal assignments to further discuss various cultural topics. Furthermore, students were also to converse with other students in the class about the topic as well as related cultural findings within the same topic.

One of the last cultural assignments was about a chef who brought a few important topics to discuss about. One topic that stood out to me a lot was how Peru, despite a growing economy, how there is still the existence of malnutrition as well as anemia and the fact that more people are dying from obesity than ever, even in comparison to hunger.  The main idea here is to spread a message, that reinforces the idea that sustainable agriculture can be made at an accessible and massive scale, while also being delicious and healthy at the same time.

Engaging in Communities

I am a strong believer in being involved with the community. I feel at a local and both national level, the support and ability for those neighboring each other is critical for the overall well-being and moral support. Having the ability to share information with one another, build connections, as well as keeping everyone informed about latest policies and elections is also vital, in both the local and global community.

Interpersonal Communication

Throughout the Spanish Intermediate II 202 course, there were a multitude of interpersonal communications involved that challenged our abilities based on the material we have learned throughout the semester, including new grammar, vocabulary as well as cultural related areas of discussion. One way that challenge these are abilities utilizing interpersonal communication was our student teacher interview, where students were challenged to converse with the teacher via Zoom digital video call, which was based on the students knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and specific topics learned throughout the semester. Another interpersonal communication for us where we tested our vocabulary and grammar, as well as ability to communicate, was through the Talk Abroad website, where students were tasked to hold 2 separate 15-minute video call conversations with someone from a Spanish speaking country. I found this interesting and challenging due to the length and free flow form of the conversation. Lastly, students were also able to engage with one another by asking and answering via video recording to other students using a service called flip grid. This was also an interesting aspect of the class that I found fun, as I was able to interact with the other classmates.

All in all, I found these exercises to highly contribute to my ability to communicate with one another using the Spanish language. If I were to make any adjustments in my studies, it would include listening to Spanish translations at a faster speed. I learned that about myself this semester that I have been practicing listening at slower speeds, and in order to grow and adapt to moderately faster speaking, language, this would enable to understand more and have more fluent interactions with other speakers.

Presentational Speaking

Throughout the class, we were tasked with a multitude of presentational speaking assignments. One of these assignments I enjoyed the challenge of was the projects. These projects were based on various topics and we were tasked to give our own response and opinions related on the topic. Given so, in order to efficiently be prepared for this, is was crucial for students to have an understanding of the new material, vocabulary, and grammar, in addition to the topic at hand. I found it more interesting on a personal level, because I have a great interest in some of these topics. One for example was the topic of social media influencers. Throughout this topic, I was able to learn more and even watch behind the scenes of a video of an influencer in a Spanish speaking country. This not only allowed me to practice my listening and vocabulary skills, but it also provided me with an interesting perspective on the topic at hand. During one of the projects, we were tasked with discussing an influencer of our own preference, in which we were to describe the social responsibilities and other information about this person, and the type of content they produce. Another topic within the same project was to discuss how these types of creators have influence in our culture. Already having a pre-existing interest in social media influencers, as well as being given the opportunity to learn more on this topic from a variety of perspectives really made this assignment enjoyable for me. Furthermore, it also allowed me to sharpen my fluency in Spanish in new ways, while preparing me to speak on similar topics in my conversations via Talk Abroad and in general.

Presentational Writing

In addition to vocal and interpersonal exercises, students were also tasked with a multitude of writing assignments. Such assignments allowed us to sharpen our fluency by incorporating newly learned vocabulary, grammar, and applying it to specific topics. One of my favorite parts of this was preparing for my projects. Being able to write out my responses allowed me to better prepare myself and learn new information and vocabulary in my long term memory. One project in specific was my written response on the topic of the tradition of El Paseo, which is a tradition in many Spanish speaking countries, which consists of walking around, and spending time with family and friends, typically in the evening. It was nice to re-visit this topic after have learning much more vocabulary and grammar and being able to apply that to this topic of interest. In addition, I was able to learn of another addition that branches off from the Paseo, which is called “paseo de olla”, which originates from Columbia, in where families typically retreat to a natural spot for relaxation and to spend time together. Overall, I feel this not only allowed me to learn more of the new and old vocabulary, but also to expand my knowledge on the culture at the same time, and personal benefit from the influence of these traditions.

Interpretive Listening

As far as interpretive listening exercises, students were tasked with a variety of related assignments over the semester. These assignments would consist of a variety of subjects, including cultural related topics. One type of listening exercise, the teacher actually had recorded a pre-recorded video where she asked a series of questions, in which students were tasked to make a video response answering the questions verbally. All in all, tasks like this enabled the student to sharpen their listening and comprehension skills to a higher degree, and such practice also allowed for the strengthening of fluency, vocabulary, and grammar.

Interpretive Reading

In additional to listening, there were a multitude of reading related assignments that were tasked to us throughout the semester. This seemed to be a huge help, in hand with listening exercises, and I think goes hand in hand with increasing fluency and being able to see the exact spelling of words and structure of sentences to a visual extent.

Throughout one of my assignments, we were provided with a story of an old Guarani legend. Being able to read this introduced a wide variety of vocabulary and allowed the reader to reinforce the new vocabulary terms in addition. Furthermore, the cultural context really was an appeal to the overall context, and the length and complexity of the story was the perfect challenge in sharpening ones reading abilities. Given so, I believe that reading in general is just as important as listening, and has helped develop my overall fluency in the Spanish language.