Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

This semester, we were tasked with a few discussion boards that required us to do research on different cultures. One of the discussion boards required us to look up “Merengue” songs by the singer Juan Luis Guerra. Another one required us to look up food eaten in “Peru-South America” and pick a typical dish and explain that dish. The last one required us to pretend we were in “Cuzco-Peru” and find a ruin we would like to visit.

I really enjoyed doing these discussion boards because they gave me insight into different cultures that I was not familiar with. These discussion boards revealed to me that the Peruvian culture is similar to the Hispanic culture in many ways such as by the things we eat.

Interpersonal Communication

This semester we were tasked with completing two TalkAbroads. We were told to talk about places and clothing in the first TalkAbroad, and your daily routine and food in the second.

The TalkAbroads in my opinion were extremely difficult. Despite the fact that I knew the topic of the conversation and had prepared ahead of time, I had no idea what the other person would say. When I was doing the TalkAbroads, I found that the other person was quite understanding which helped me feel more comfortable.

Presentational Speaking

This semester we were given the job of conducting four student-to-student oral interviews. Three of them were live via Zoom with a partner and the professor and one was recorded in VHL with your partner.

In the first student-to-student interview, we had to create a dialogue between a tourist and a receptionist. The second student-to-student interview we conducted involved a conversation between a customer and a salesperson pretending that the conversation was taking place in an open market. The third student-to-student interview was a dialogue happening at an open market on a Sunday morning between a customer preparing for a party and employee suggesting what she should buy. One aspect of the student-to-student interviews that I found challenging was having to comprehend the other students’ responses and then responding quickly while pronouncing the words correctly. The interviews became easier when we practiced it a few times with each other until we felt comfortable. The student-to-student interviews allowed me to practice speaking Spanish, which was very beneficial because I don’t have anyone in my household who knows the language with whom I could converse.

Presentational Writing

Throughout this semester we were tasked with completing three compositions. We were given an attachment for our first composition and advised to pick 10 verbs from the photos and write 10 sentences in the past tense using different pronouns. The second writing assignment we were given was to write a composition about a trip we took with our friends or family. For the third composition, we had to write a short article for our schools’ website describing different leisure activities that students enjoy on campus.

All the compositions in my opinion were difficult because it was so much to remember. Writing the first composition was the easiest for me because I had pictures as references to guide me. The third composition was considerably more difficult because it required us to be more creative and write more descriptively. What made the third composition slightly easier was the fact that we were able to use the vocabulary from all previous chapters.

Interpretive Listening

This semester we were tasked with completing four voice threads. These voice threads required us to only listen to the professor ask us questions and we were to answer the questions in a video.

Since pictures were provided to us I believe that made answering the questions easier. We had the option to listen to the question as many times as we needed which was helpful as well. Most of our assignments involved writing or reading in some form but the voice threads required us to only listen to the question and answer verbally. That made the assignment challenging but at the same time required me to think more critically.

Interpretive Reading

We had assignments in VHL Central that included brief reading exercises in Spanish, followed by a few questions in Spanish about the reading.

Since I have problems pronouncing words in Spanish, reading was one of the most difficult aspects of this class for me. Since this was an online class, the professor was unable to correct my mistakes while I was reading, which I believe hindered me. Looking up the pronunciation of words and repeating them multiple times assisted me in remembering how to pronounce particular words. Despite the fact that my reading and pronunciation are far from perfect, I have progressed tremendously since the first day of class. Thanks to the assignments in VHL, I can now somewhat comprehend what is being said when I see something that is written in Spanish.

Source: Aventuras 5 ^th edition, José Blanco and P. Donley. Vista Higher Learning