Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Spanish 201 Reflection

This Spanish 201 course introduced me to how college was truly is and was very transformative in how I learn. This course was one of the most challenging Spanish course that I have taken due to the fact that the workload was more than I expected in comparison to a high school course and my course was not in-person; however, I did manage to understand all material, attempt to stay caught up, and overall learned an abundance of new information in regards to Spanish language and culture. In this course, we covered topics such as technology, health, and celebrations utilizing tenses such as the preterit, the imperfect and subjunctive forms. It was simple for me to grasp the understanding of terms, but I believe conjugation and sentence structure was one of my biggest challenges throughout Spanish 201. Overall, this course introduced me to a new and quicker form of learning and taught me plenty about Spanish culture and language.

Instructions

Exploring Culture

Practices that have helped me gain an understanding of cultural perspectives is traveling, attending cultural cafes and events, forming my own cultural club, and meeting and engaging with foreign exchange students.

These practices have helped me out within the global community in several ways. Attending the Spanish cafes and meeting with foreign exchange students from Spain helped me to understand the similarities and differences in culture between the Spaniards and Americans in my age group. Furthermore, meeting with these exchange students encouraged me to work around language barriers and speak Spanish in order to communicate with them. These practices also helped me to explore further into my roots and get a better understanding of where I came from, especially after creating my own cultural club. Attending a cultural school has also allowed me to see Spanish influences in other cultures. For instance, when i began studying Arabic I noticed similarities and influences from the Spanish language. Overall, these practices helped me to work through the stereotype that America is #1. After, attending that school and using these practices, I see that the statement is far from the truth.

Furthermore, throughout the duration of the Spanish 201 course, we got to dive deeper into the different cultures of Spanish Speaking countries. For example, we learn about a tomato festival called Tomatina, which occurs in Spain annually. During this celebration thousands of people gather and essentially throw tomatoes as a form of celebration.

Engaging in Communities

It is important to engage in your local and global community for several reasons. First, engaging in your community can hep you to establish connections and a broad network. Furthermore, engaging in your communities helps people to become more accepting and tolerant of people who have different cultures and values than they do. Lastly, it is essential to participate in your community because you can help those less fortunate than you.

I have participated in my local and global community in several ways. for instance, I participated in the global community by participating in a student exchange program with China. Furthermore, I would go to cultural cafes in high school, and I even would host my own cafes at school. through my African and Caribbean cultural club. I participated in my local community by being an active member at the military youth center and by volunteering with my sports teams

Interpersonal Communication

In this TalkAbroad, conversation Alejandro and I discuss chores, social media and hobbies for 15 minutes. I tell him information about myself in regards to those things. For instance, I discuss my favorite chores and apps.

One challenge that I had to endure throughout this conversation was comprehending Alejandro’s questions and comments quickly; however, I did notice in my recording that my Spanish-speaking is becoming more fluent, and there is more confidence when I speak than there was before. I also took note of the flow of the conversation. My conversation with Alejandro flowed well for the most part with some abrupt pauses. This is usually me trying to comprehend or think about what I should say next, but I over came my challenges by listening out for words that i recognized and asking Alejandro to repeat himself in Spanish if I misunderstood. One thing I could have done differently is elaborate further in my answers and ask more specific questions.

Presentational Speaking

For this course there was not too many presentational speaking assignments; however I believe that was because the course was online. However, we did do speaking assignments on VHL in which we were required to discuss things such as our childhood and what we did on the weekend

Furthermore, presentational speaking was also used throughout the duration of Zoom meetings when we would answer questions. This showed our understanding of the new terms and sentences structures that were being taught to us

Presentational Writing

Daija-C

In composition 1, I compared and contrasted 2 celebrations that occurred in my past. The first being my birthday, in which I went to Las Vegas, and the second being Christmas, which I described as not being as fun as Las Vegas on my birthday because my family, and I did not celebrate and we stayed home.

I think I excelled in Composition 1 by being detailed and descriptive of both events and elaborately explaining the differences and similarities. On the other hand, I noticed that i struggled when it came to placing accents on the correct words and using the correct conjugations. I over came this by correcting my paper and slowing down to check my conjugations in my next composition. Although the composition had sentence limits, I feel like I could have improved further on this assignment by being more elaborate on the activities I did.

Daija

In composition 2, I was required to write about a story that i have experienced with my car or electronic device. Therefore, I decided to write about the time I popped two tires on my way to work, causing me to be late.

In this piece, I definitely noticed improvements in my writing and in what I knew, meaning I did not have to ask for guidance on how to say certain words and phrases in Spanish as much as I did in the first composition. Furthermore, there were significantly less errors in my writing than there was in my first composition. One main issue that I notice with my second composition, however, was that I had poor sentences structure and grammar at times, and I also had several words conjugated incorrectly. I over came this by correcting my work.

Interpretive Listening

For interpretive listening, we did several activities. Most activities included watching a cultural video paired with a set of questions regarding the video. One video we watched in this course was “Que Hizo Eva Anoche?”, where we had to answer questions about the video.

Interpretive Reading

We read several things throughout this course. Most readings were provided through VHL, and they typically provided cultural background on Spanish speaking countries.

This reading describes several celebrations that occurred in Spanish news. I was overall able to establish basic information, such as who was involved, when the events occurred and where; however, I tended to slow down when it came to answering more specific questions in regards to the reading, especially since I did not understand all the terminology that was being used. I got through this by pinpointing words I recognized to help answer questions and using my resources to help me with what I did not know.