Exploring Culture

I tend to watch YouTube in my free time and some advertisements would come up in Spanish. As the course continued, I was able to understand more and more of the commercials that would come up. And these commercials weren’t just an advertisement for Spanish products. One ad I noticed came up frequently was an ad for McDonalds but in Spanish.

Small everyday things like advertisements or signs that include Spanish have become easier and easier to read over the course of this summer course. Some students just learn to pass the quiz or test and then end up forgetting valuable material that could apply later in life. With Spanish the next unit is always a continuation of the previous unit. Which made it much easier to learn and retain the information and apply it go forward.

Engaging in Communities

I think community engagement is very important. Getting involved in different communities is what brings people together. We learn different things about other cultures from the source. For example, my team volunteered at a Youth Center and the kids there were fascinated with my two international teammates. And they loved learning from them and I remember one child so excited she said, “I can’t wait to tell my mom!”

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad was very interesting in my opinion and the best speaking assignment I have done since learning about it this past Spring and utilizing it this Summer too. I like it so much because talking to a native speaker almost feels like traveling the world virtually. That assignment allows us to apply the techniques of listening to the real world.

The biggest difficulty I had to overcome was wanting to speak in English when I couldn’t figure out a word. I just had to understand that even if it takes me more words to describe something, at least I am still speaking in Spanish. Resorting to speaking in English made me start to forget the words I did know.

Presentational Speaking

TalkAbroad was the hardest speaking activity we did but it did help me learn. With our instructors they understand when we are struggling or accidently slip and speak English but with TalkAbroad we have to really focus if we want our partner to be able to understand us.

We had many speaking assignments and the hardest challenge is translating from English to Spanish while talking. What I mean by this is while I am talking I am thinking in English trying to translate with the words or phrases that I remember and then speaking.

Presentational Writing

The few presentational writing assignments we did outside of Lingro Learning were the discussion boards. They were a great way to interact with our classmates and professor. I definitely learned some interesting facts from reading my classmates responses.

Interpretive Listening

Most of the listening activities were done with Lingro Learning and they were quite difficult for me personally. But they did help me with my pronunciation because I would hear how different letters or words are supposed to sound.

Interpretive Reading

All the reading assignments were done within Lingro Learning and they were not as hard as the listening. Reading has always been easier than listening because I can understand the context by seeing the words better than I can understand from just hearing them.