Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

During this course, I was invited to step out of my comfort zone and interact with students via ZOOM. I was able to interpret and practice the Spanish I was learning with other students who also were not as well versed at the subject which helped with my accent and understanding tremendously. Using LINGO, I was able to learn about different countries and how they established there holidays and entertainment. It was interesting to see how different cultures can celebrate and spend there time differently.

These products and practices help me better understand values and attitudes in the Hispanic culture because I had to take the time to really dive into the Spanish culture and understand that the differences in culture can directly tie into how you interact with a person. I can relate to the Spanish culture because I am Portuguese and we live very similar lifestyles. It is a positive shift for other to learn the differences in culture and understand that just because were different and do things differently does not mean that’s a bad thing.

These products and practices challenged my worldview by opening up new doors. I had no idea the differences the come with historical culture and I feel now that I do know its important for everyone to peek inside a different culture from there own if not for pleasure of seeing something knew but for educational purposes. It is important to remember the stereotypes can be harsh and with that I feel learning about someone else culture can open the understanding that people do things differently depending on where they come form. Its important that we do not misjudge a person based off of what they belive3 in but support the fact that they are keeping there heritage alive. Here in a discussion bored post I talked about the heritage behind kisses and how people would react to that. This is just one example of understanding that people show affection differently and all forms should be appreciated and not looked down on.

Engaging in Communities

It is extremely important to interact with people from different walks of life. My partner in this class is from Queens, New York. Now. I have never been there but we have very different lives and ways we do things. The understanding behind that is that we worked together and made it work despite our differences. It is important to meet different people and expand the view you have because not everyone is going to be folk the same location and may do things differently then you do. I was able to experience this first hand in this class and I am so thankful for that opportunity.

This was the first interaction we had together. So we were able to get past the nerves and really dive into the language and ensure there was no barrier between the two of us.

Interpersonal Communication

In this course I completed many interpersonal oral/audio activities, discussion board and other interpersonal writing/reading activities related to my Spanish learning. We discussed situations about our favorite seasons and our favorite things to do. We even talked about the campus and what it looks like and how to get around without ever being there. This was very interesting. We did not do talk abroad but I was able to meet with my t partner once a week and practice my Spanish accent and language often.

The interpersonal communication activities: such as conversations with the professor, discussion board posts, and even our partner meetings have helped my Spanish growth tremendously. I have learned how to use different verbs and how to associate words with them. It can be difficult to learn a new language and frustrating when you mess up and have no idea what comes next. With these interpersonal activities I was able to practice how to overcome situations where I would forget what word or context to use. I felt like I exceled at understanding the assignments and how to apply the Spanish language proficiently. I was able to help my partner through sticky situations where he needed a verb or a pronunciation of different words. This next semester I will ensure that I thoroughly understand pronunciation and I feel this will help with my success rate of understanding the verbiage.

Presentational Speaking

In this class, we completed many presentational speaking activities. We always started the recording by introducing ourselves to our partner which made this aspect get easier each time. We always used the vocabulary that we learn throughout the module to help connect what we were talking about to what we were learning. This example I have today shows my partner and I getting to know each other and asking about what we have planned for the week or the rest of the day. It helped us become more acquainted with each other even though we live hours away.

These assignments were very challenging because it is impossible to memorize a script when you are having a general conversation with someone so I had to really pay attention to what I was learning throughout the module. Another thing that helped me tremendously was that I was practicing my pronunciations and the spelling to ensure I was saying them correctly and did not throw off my partner. This aspect of the class was very challenging but as we practiced we got better and it became easier the more we did it.

Presentational Writing

Here is a short paper written about who I would nominate to receive an award. I choose my father and discussed a few of his characteristics that would make him suitable for receiving the award.

In this paper I used verbs that we have been learning in the module to help get my point across. I explained what my father does for a living and how he really divulges into his job and caring for others. When doing this, I made sure that I gave solid examples as to why he should be nominated and selected for winning an award. This gave me the understanding of how important it is to learn how to write these words in Spanish. If I would not have paid attention to them I wouldn’t not have been able to figure it out. Even the words that are similar to the English language are spelled quite differently.

Interpretive Listening

During this course we used interpretive listening activities to create discussion bored. In this specific task we had to listen to a video that discussed social media and interpret what we thought about using it. We used this video in English to help us understand so we could answer the questions about our social media usage in Spanish.

kiyosaki, Robert. “The Cure to Social Media Addiction – Youtube.” Med School Insiders, February 16, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRL6_SxeT0U.

We used many different video to help us with learning and understanding Spanish. We also used it, in cases like the video above where the topic was in English but it helped us understand a bigger topic so we could conversate in Spanish efficiently. This aspect of watching videos and commenting on them was rather easy to me. I really dedicated time to making sure I could learn all I could about the topic to ensure my posts were sufficient and had enough information. Below is my response to the video and my ideas on social media.

Interpretive Reading

This semester I read many different articles about Spanish universities and the differences of Spanish culture to the culture we have here in the United states. One specific article was different facts about UGR. A college that is very prestigious in the Spanish community. The article I used was, “Study in Spain.” Expatica, March 1, 2022. https://www.expatica.com/es/education/higher-education/study-in-spain-101452.

The reading activities that involved searching for information set in a different country were really challenging for me./ I had to adjust my search engine to ensure I was getting the proper information as a student in Spain looking for a college and not just a travel abroad kind of search result. Once I got the hang of this minor detail this became much easier to handler and complete and I learned many new things for these searches. From my discussion bored I attached my response to what I learned by searching and reading articles from different countries.