Spanish homework/PLE:

The online format of PLE is a very well thought out outline for Spanish 101; I really got the best use out of the practice sections where I could match Spanish words to a picture or to fill in the blank to make sentences for a picture shown. In the Super site website the lessons and videos there were very helpful to learn as well; although sometimes I found great difficulty in getting the right answers in those activities the repetition until I found the right answer helped in my ability to remember the sentence structure or the vocabulary word.

Our Spanish homework was very good as well like the written compositions and brainstorms that accompanied them. The difficulty here was in the fact that our brainstorm was short one word ideas (to write about) and then from there we type our paper based on the brainstorm outline. I really enjoyed the corrections Senora Padilla would put into our papers because it gave me a chance to see and understand words I missed (how important all the words are) and to see grammar corrections. This is how people retain new information by repetition and by seeing and correcting their mistakes.

Reflecting on the Spring semester with Senora Padilla 2021:

• Through all the studying there were “ah ha” moments when understanding the language clicked in my mind as for example when we first learned about the sentence structure when asking a question and then while answering the question you can use the same word to respond example: “Donde estudias?” my reply will be simply “Estudio en la biblioteca.” So the question asked where do I study and my answer is I study in the library. The subject is estudiar (study) but because I answer with myself as the subject then the verbs form changes to “I” form “estudio”. In learning this now if I am stumped on a question I can focus on the filler words instead of worrying about the verb and subject as much because I know I will be using those words already.

Another reflection I can think of during the Spring semester of 2021 is :

• How I remembered all the vocabulary much better when I wrote them down multiple times. In some cases I would write down my answers to the super site lessons or activities. This helped me remember easily the words and sentence structures but also in common phrases or common use terms in sentences. Of course I am still no Spanish expert however, I think because of this type of note taking and studying the vocabulary I can read in Spanish much better I have a lot of Hispanic friends who post in Spanish on Facebook and I no longer have to rely on google translate 100% now all I sometimes have to do is look up just one word of their posts instead of the whole thing. This makes me feel so great knowing that I really did learn a lot in Spanish 101.

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Exploring Cultures

What I have learned about Spanish cultures that I have not learned from my Hispanic friends or my Hispanic step family is that everyone seems happy and friendly and excited to talk to people and meet new people. The cultura videos on the super site went into great detail implying that they are friendly and laid back easy going people this makes me envy that way of life. Being able to go to the beach with new friends or explode the city while meeting friendly people all throughout the center of town. I also learned how different the school systems are between North America and other places for example, while in high school the kids/teens get a great understanding in what career they want long before they go to college. Unlike in my case where I had no idea what I wanted to do until I got out of the Navy then I settled into Engineering and changed it only once to Mechanical Engineering Technology however, if I had been given attention in high school to think about this or have help from people in that field then I would not have had so long of a time where I was unsure about a career.

Interpersonal Communication

In the super site website I got a lot of useful information from the teaching videos as well as flash cultura. The learning video was where we learned vocabulary heard the words and saw the words; then the narrator would explain the structures of different forms of words and their spellings how the same word is different depending on your subject so I, you, he/she, we, us. This helped in shaping and forming my understanding for Spanish I feel like I could have a pretty easy conversation and hold my own pretty well so long as the Spanish speaker did not talk too fast.

Presentational Speaking

We were given the activities of oral interviews with students in the class this consisted of asking five questions (different) and answering their five questions. This was fun because I got to speak to my classmates and practice our Spanish together without the fear of judgement or being scared to make a mistake. This was fun to prepare for and think up what questions I would want to ask to make sure that they are different than what my interview student partner asks. While doing this exercise I was able to speak with less anxiety each time and with more confidence.

Interpretive Writing

During Spanish in Spring 2021 we were scheduled to write brainstorms and drafted compositions (1, 2) which was fun to do and I learned a lot from those types of assignments. I learned that when learning language it is normal and okay to have minor errors of spelling or punctuation. I learned from all the corrections we had in this class and they were thoughtfully thought out for me to understand what I could do next time to be better; which in turn gave me a better and more clear understanding of how to form sentences and paragraphs in Spanish. Before the start of this semester I never thought I would be at the level of being able to forms such good paragraphs and let alone that they were understandable to a native speaker like Senora Padilla. Below are the brainstorms and rough draft compositions that I happened to save:

brainstorm-roughdraft-1

DESIREE-AHRENS-BS-and-RD2-1

Interpretive Listening

On the Super site website we learned from all manner of ways like by listening, reading, repeating, filling in the blank, answering questions and matching (opposites or similarity). When it comes to listening this was probably the hardest task for me in some instances the speaker would talk fast and I would have to play the audio recording at least twice to understand the words they were saying which made me a better listener and over time I stopped having to replay the audio. By the end of the semester I was able to just hear the words once and boom I got it. After getting used to hearing the audio it began to be fun to see if my ears were hearing the right words.

Interpretive Reading

In every chapter there were amazing stories about the cultures in Spanish speaking worlds and fun facts that we all learned like one of my favorites was that all the Spanish speaking countries are super fans for soccer or as they call it futbol. This was fun thing to learn because it helped me imagine how fun and crazy a downtown must get when a major soccar game is on especially if it is a rival game. Another amazing thing I learned from the readings was that in Spanish speaking countries when high school age the student starts thinking about careers and what they might want to do for a living. I think this is fantastic because when I was in high school I never had anyone telling me to think about a career now, or even helping to narrow down what I might be good at. The textbook was very informative and fun to read.