Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Products that have helped me gain a better understanding of culture would be the Spanish textbook. Practices that have help me gain a better understanding of culture would be the homework on our VHL website. These things have helped me better see and know the difference between cultures. Not everyone does the same things or even talks the same. Being able to see how everyone is different is good because it shows us that new things are being produced but also not every country is doing the exact same thing.

These practices and products helped me better understand the values and attitudes in the Hispanic culture as well as my own because it helped me see that we do things differently which is interesting but knowledgeable. These things challenge my worldview by allowing me to seek beyond my own culture and where I live to better see how others live and what they do. These challenges revealed that not everyone or everywhere is the same. Everything is always different and better in its own way. This helped by allowing me to see how hard it for people and actually understand not everyone has it easy some have to work harder than others. So, this brought a new perspective to my eyes to want to better understand someone before making assumptions.

Engaging in Communities

The importance of engaging in the community is very important. I believe this because even though some people or populations are better off than others people should want to lend a helping hand in wanting to better the community so everyone is doing good. We should all want to see everyone succeed and do better if the community wants it. Giving back is always a good feeling.

My experience in engaging in the community would have been when I danced our dance team fed people who were homeless. This helped me realize that this could be anyone or even me. Also, another way I help the community is with my job. Everyone who needs physical therapy comes in and I am able to be on their journey with them as they get better.

Interpersonal Communication

Activities I have used this semester with Spanish would be discussion board posts and VHL Entrevista with either a conversation with the teacher or another student. These have helped me grasp Spanish and the cultures in Spanish a lot better and understand and actually be able to speak Spanish. The discussion boards were more for learning the cultures and what we thought about how people did things in these cultures. While the Entervistas were for learning to carry on a conversation and understand what was being said in Spanish.

These interpersonal communication activities which are discussion board posts and VHL Entervistas have helped me better my Spanish and knowledge of Spanish. The discussion board post was mainly posted about Spanish culture and what they did and how they did things differently. While the Entervistas were for conversations between either the teacher or another student. The discussion boards have helped me because I was able to learn about how things were done differently from how I do them. The Entervistas helped because they helped me learn to actually say words and phrases in Spanish. I feel like with each assignment that was due I have grown. Since the beginning of the class, I feel like I am now able to say more than one sentence in Spanish or even tell you about how Spanish cultures do things differently. The most difficult thing was talking in Spanish and actually having to remember every single thing to say. I overcame this by practice and doing the assignments. I excelled at the homework on VHL because I was able to do it at my own pace but yet still learn new things before doing an actual assignment that was for a higher grade.

Presentational Speaking

A presentational activity I have completed this semester is called a Prueba oral assignment. This was a recording of me answering questions in Spanish by myself. I have completed four different assignments like this. These assignments were very helpful because they give you an overview of what the entire module was.  

The presentation I completed was called Prueba oral. There were four of these assignments. We would be given questions and we would have to answer these questions in complete sentences in Spanish. What challenged me the most was figure out how to put the sentence together correctly. I overcame this by using help before I had to submit the assignment by using Spanishdict. I excelled at being able to use my resources when I needed help with this assignment. What I would do differently next time is trying to do it more on my own without any help.

Presentational Writing

Presentational writing I have completed this semester would be the composition for the final exam. This assignment has to be written in Spanish to show that we knew what was taught. This assignment was about what was taught throughout the entire semester. Which included vocabulary, grammar, and culture.

The composition that was written for my final exam was explained above. This assignment helped me see what I really remembered from what was taught throughout the semester. With this assignment, it was hard because I was timed and so you had to think quickly and be able to know exactly what you wanted to say and how to say it. I think I could have done better but I was not prepared nor did I prepare myself. What was easy was knowing the material but the difficult part was trying to think about how to put it in the correct words. Next time I could do better by being prepared and having an idea of what I want to say or how I want to say it.

Interpretive Listening

An interpretive listening activity I had was a lot. I had homework videos on VHL, I had quiz videos I had to listen to and music that was posted in the modules. These activities were very helpful.

Different things I have to listen to include music, videos from homework, and quiz videos of my teacher speaking. Each of these videos was helpful. The music helped by listening and learning the lyrics because some of them were words we were learning. The homework videos were super helpful because they allowed me to participate in the video to learn present tense form change. The quiz videos also helped because they allowed me to write things down and better remember for the quiz. What was most interesting was the homework videos only because I was able to participate in them. My takeaway from this experience is listening is always key. You learn a lot when you listen but also easier sometimes when you listen to others talk.

Interpretive Reading

The interpretive reading activity I have completed during this semester is the book for Spanish. The book was very helpful in taking notes and also in providing information about the cultures and what they do.

The activity I described above was the Spanish textbook. This textbook has helped me from writing notes, learning the cultures, learning interesting facts, and also vocabulary and grammar. What was challenging for me was the activities provided in the book to help you better your understanding. I overcame this difficulty by going back through the book and using that to help me do the activities. What was most interesting were the pages with facts that even the teacher did not have time to go over. My takeaway from reading was that even though I do not like reading it is very important because if you do not read then you miss out on a lot of things the teacher did not go over or did go over but you missed.