Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

In each unit, we were shown the cultural differences in Latin America on a certain topic. For instance, one of the units showed the differences on whether people took naps during the day or not. Another was about their lives at university. In each, they provided perspectives form several countries to show that it is not the same everywhere. Every place had their own unique perspective on things.

These sections were useful because they were easy to understand, but they still provided useful information. It allowed me to better understand that the way I live my life now, is not necessarily how people in other countries live their lives. It was interesting to see the differences. Honestly it smashed the preconceived notion I had that some hispanic countries had to live drastically differently because they were a poor country or something like that. I was not only able to see the differences, but also how similar we really are. For example, I had never even thought that our college experiences could be so similar. The main difference I saw was that in many hispanic countries, it is much more common for the student to continue living with their family as they attend school, whereas in America, it is extremely common for a student to go live on campus at their college.

Engaging in Communities

It is important to engage in your immediate community, as well as the global community, because it teaches us that there are things that are bigger than us in the world. Whether you are participating in something smaller-scaled, like a local food bank, or something bigger, like Habitat for Humanity, it is important to remember that we can help others in so many ways.

Unfortunately, due to covid, I have not personally been able to truly go out and participate in my community, but I believe that will soon be able to!

Interpretive Listening

A common activity on LingroHub was for us to listen to part of a conversation spoken in Spanish. Then we would have to record our own voices responding to whatever the speaker said.

I thought this was an interesting exercise, because it gave me a chance to really think about how to respond in an everyday conversation, versus responding to simple questions. It was challenging to have to think of how to fit words together quickly, as I speaking, rather than just writing them down and saying them out loud. I think it did make me better at speaking and responding in real time.

Interpretive Reading

Many of the activities we did this semester were found in LingroHub. There were many passages we were asked to read, where we did not know all the words involved and were asked to make inferences at first about what those words could mean based on the context clues. It did help me understand the language a little more, to see the word we were learning used in context with the entire language, rather than just little sentences.

“Hoy en día, para muchas personas del mundo hispano, la sagrada siesta de todos los días es tan solo un hermoso recuerdo. Sí, es verdad que la hora de la siesta es una costumbre que todavía se mantiene en pueblos pequeños, especialmente en lugares muy calurosos donde las personas regresan a sus casas al mediodía para almorzar y descansar por unas horas, pero en las grandes ciudades esta costumbre ya casi no existe. En parte, esto es consecuencia de las grandes distancias al trabajo, las economías digitales y la influencia de compañías multinacionales que alteran el ritmo de vida y las costumbres locales.  Cuatro colaboradores culturales hablan de la siesta y de su vida diaria donde viven.”(https://hub.lingrolearning.com/#/62fbfc2f2f7b02783dd3a9cd/6233b17e8e95ee7173ac53a8/6233b16a8e95ee7173ac47e2/)

This was one of the passages we were asked to interpret for a cultural assignment. It was frustrating to go over words that I wasn’t familiar with, but this was easily solved by looking up their meaning in the Spanish dictionary. I found it interesting to see that many people in smaller villages in Latin America are much more likely to take naps during the day than people who are in the larger cities. It gave me some insight into hispanic culture, compared to our culture in America where I think it is much more common to nap.

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