Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

During my time in this Spanish course, I have grasped a lot of knowledge and understanding on the many different perspectives and view points on cultural backgrounds and traditions. I learned this mostly through the Lingro Learning product and practice lessons. Lingro learning is an online tool that not only helped me learn more about cultural point of views personally but the social, economic, and political topics currently in other Spanish speaking countries and how they differ from American culture.

In the practices of Lingro Learning; this online learning tool has helped me better understand values and attitudes in the Hispanic culture as well as my own. Lingro learning helped expand my limits when it came to spanish. It of course can be difficult to learn a new language but this learning tool helped carry me throughout my class lessons and lectures. Although, this was a challenge when it came to grammar it taught me a lot about the spanish culture in other countries. For example, I learned about the political and social views of the LBGTQ+ community in the spanish speaking countries. Not only were there drastic differences compared to America, but had differences in alot of spanish speaking countries. Certain countries required certain laws to be followed. Although it was tough, to remember and familiarize myself with these changes it was very interesting to know and learn about.

Engaging in Communities

It is so very important to engage in your immediate community and the global community as I feel it should be definite to expand my knowledge on the values of community outreach. When people come together to benefit each others education and knowledge by participating and contribuiting into the community around us. I have participated in The Virginia Beach Ambassador of The Sister Cities Association. This was an organizational scholarship opportunity as well as an opportunity to provide ideas and solutions to help the country crisis throughout the world. 30 students were asked to present a country of their choice. My grandmother is Filipino; therefore, I chose the Philippines.  I was proud to share the values of the Philippine culture through a formal monologue, followed by a Filipino inspired dance. I was surround with other ambassadors from other years and countries. I met and learned with spanish speaking countries that attended as well. It was important to demonstrate an international understanding in effort to promote inclusivity. 

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad was indeed a very different experience for me. I have never spoken in only the Spanish language before in the 15 minute long range. I had to complete 2 Talkabroad audios where I would be conversing in the Spanish language to someone from a Spanish speaking country. The people that I´d talk to were experts in the language and were very patient and understanding. I learned from this experience as my speaking partners would always help and correct me. I would speak about things such as my family, sports, what activities that I liked to participate in, what I like to eat and prepare etc. Also the discussion boards used in class where a partner and I would answer questions in Spanish based on the activity posted on the board within class time provided by our professor.

I believe that I have grown a lot when it comes to speaking within the Spanish language. I feel this way because I have learned a lot of vocabulary throughout all the units I learned this semester. I however, do get nervous when speaking in this language. I have trouble correctly paring the correct verb to the correct point of view whether it’s he/she, they, we etc. During this semester my professor always included activites that would help me comprehend these mishaps when speaking Spanish. Nevertheless, I still believe I have grown when it comes to Spanish. I not only learn a lot of the vocabulary used within all the units but learn how to speak it based on accent marks and grammar. I would study more and talk to my classmates more to create study groups that would help one another within the class.

Presentational Speaking

In the Spanish 102 course I would say my favorite presentational speaking assignment would be thew 3 minute video of me preparing a breakfast burrito for our class unit which included material about preparing or ingredients needed for our units food vocab.

Compared to my Spanish speaking from last year you can hear more confidence in my voice; I also have tried to incorporate rolling my Rś and speaking based on where an accent of a word resides. I have grown in my talk and have noticed a slight pick up in speed. However, the quality of my speaking is truly based on what I know about what I ´ m speaking. So for units that I didn´t quite understand I think its important that I should ask questions and study more when I do not have the answers.

Presentational Writing

I have experience in Spanish presentational writing when it came to the rough draft papers for the projects that we had to complete in the class. The writing piece I choose as my artifact would be the flyer made to inform readers on people’s well being. I spoke upon the topics of depression and anxiety in the spanish language.

I have grown tremendously with the use of these rough draft papers. These papers forced us to use our vocabulary without using google translate or our notes. We had to create an informative piece off the top of our heads.I have had a lot of activities in my spanish class that dealt with reading such as Lingro Learning. Lingro Learning was an online tool or website that really helped me grasp and be aware of knowledge about what I did not know about Hispanic culture, grammar, and vocabulary.

Interpretive Listening

When it came to listening in my Spanish class it was a little difficult at times because the language is usually spoken at a fast pace. This was challenging however my professor would always make sure that the class understood what was being taught. Listening is very important in any language to communicate or conversations. I had to use the listening skill when talking to or responding to the partners for my TalkAbroad Assignment. If you focus on your listening it can help you comprehend easier, and that ´ s what I recommend to myself so that I can grow when I speak the Spanish language.

After observing the instructor and learning different techniques of teaching, I found that I comprehended the best when materials are visually presented. This type of learning style has a clear vision of the topic at hand and helps me process information that is given to me. Hands-on visual techniques have proven to be most effective in both the working and home environment.

Interpretive Reading

Interpretive communication activities were very important In my Spanish class; these activites helped me gain knowledge when it came to speaking, listening, and reading the Spanish language. These activites were mainly shown on the Lingro Learning online tool which would show to correctly pronunciate words. They would provide reading excerpts in which we were to use our context clues and answer the questions. My professor would put paragraphs written in Spanish on the board and we would read it together in class. The reading part may be seen as an easier task as I am best as a visual learner; also due to the conjugated words that were hinted in English. It was difficult to combat my own internal battles but knowing that others persevered helped remind me that I can conquer all things that are thrown at me. I learned to challenge all things that I believed were right while influencing others of the same.

Novice Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zyWCQq5Vu50KmhsEtNk__lXJbKQDynd-/edit