Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
I’ve learned a lot about Spanish Cultures from the VHL Flash Cultura Videos that I watched as part of my homework. One of these videos is the Naturaleza en Costa Rica which talked tourist attractions such as the volcanos in Costa Rica. They also talked about the beautiful hot springs and the best hotels to stay at.
Engaging in Communities
I engaged a little in the Spanish community when I go to visit Mexico. I’ve done this around 6 times when I was younger and I loved getting involved with the locals down there. I would also try my best with my family to find authentic places to visit.
Interpersonal Communication
TalkAbroad is when you talk to someone from a different country and try to have a conversation with them in their language. The conversation length can vary from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. You mostly talk about each other’s hobbies.
Discussion Boards are when you submit a response to a discussion. People are able to see your response and reply to it and give their opinions on it.
TalkAbroad for me is probably where I struggle the most because the whole experience becomes very stressful. The stress will cause me to forget words and I will draw blanks. This causes me to do poorly on these assignments however, I feel I did pretty well with some blanks now and then on the TalkAbroad we did this semester.
The Discussion Boards were helpful to see what views my classmates had on various Spanish subjects. It helped me get to know my classmates better. It also helped me find a partner for the partnered activities that we did.
Presentational Speaking
The closest thing we did to a presentation was the TalkAbroad discussed in Interpersonal Communication.
Presentational Writing
One of the presentational writing activities that I did was the Discussion Board Composition Assignment. For this assignment I had to describe what my TalkAbroad partner likes to do for fun. For this Assignment I had to change all the parts where she was talking about herself to make it as if I were talking about her.
Doing this assignment helped me to use correct wording when describing someone else. I can now use this for when I have Spanish conversations in the future.
Interpretive Listening
In VHL I watched one video from each lesson which was lessons 13-16. The first video talked about geothermal energy. The second video talked about what pedestrians should do at crosswalks. The third video talked about how gestures and feelings can go a long way for a community. The final video talked about future plans, work, and future perfect.
These videos have helped me better understand and memorize vocabulary from each lesson. this helped improve my homework scores and quiz/test scores. These videos will greatly benefit my future with Spanish.
Interpretive Reading
In VHL there was one reading from each lesson which was lessons 13-16. The first reading talked about the death of Jaimie and the plant that grew from her photo. The second reading talked about transportation in the city of Medellin. The third reading talked about holding onto a box.
I didn’t really understand how these readings related to our lessons but overall they did help me expand my vocabulary because of the circumstances in each of the readings.
