Exploring Culture

In Spanish 102, the most beneficial practice that I received was through Contrasena. Contrasena was the online training aid we had to complete in this class, and some of the assignments required me to investigate certain topics in a Spanish-speaking country. Some of the topics were women’s sports in Spanish-speaking countries, things certain countries did to help the well-being of their inhabitants, and what is most important to the members of Spanish-speaking countries. Contrasena also provided specific info from actual people from Spanish-speaking countries like Chile, El Salvador, and Spain.

The following are a couple of pictures from Contrasena that helped explain the culture of their perspective countries.

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hub.lingolearning.com/learning/pictures

This practice helped me broaden my understanding of the Hispanic culture. The info that they presented really help me understand and go out on the internet and discover things about certain Spanish-speaking countries that I had no clue about. The understanding of some of these cultures also helped me realize that there are many similarities between my culture and the Hispanic cultures that I investigated. These practices also challenged my worldview by showing how different some of the cultures around the world work and prepare food and others things of the sort. One not so much of a stereotype but a perspective that I had was about the celebration of holidays, like Christmas, one of the investigations I had to do I picked El Salvador and it was a topic of culture. I did not know that most countries celebrate Christmas the same way that we do in America, like spending the day with your family eating turkey and hanging decorations. That is something that I learned during my practices on Contrasena.

Engaging in Communities

Being from America, and living most of my young life in Florida it is safe to say that you are surrounded by a plethora of different cultures, these cultures present different styles of living and ways of celebrating things that are important to an individual. The value of engaging in my immediate community is that of a sense of appreciation for the love the other cultures have for one another. The importance of engaging in what is happening around you in your community is so you can come together with the people that live close to you, by building friendships this helps you as an individual understand the importance of the members in your community and you also form an understanding of who they are and what they are interested in the most.

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In Ocala every so often mostly during summer there are plenty of cool events that happen downtown. One of which I’ve taken part in was the Festival Latino in Downtown Ocala. This festival was a blast since almost everyone from my community in Ocala attended, it showcased Latino music, food, and art. This festival was a great experience since I got to see the music, food, and art of a different culture than mine and it helps me understand what members of the Latino culture hold close to their hearts.

Interpersonal Communication

While in Spanish 102, I had the pleasant experience of conversing with two people from around the world using their native tongue. During TalkAbroad which is a video conversation with someone of your choosing, we completed two, fifteen-minute conversations with two people from around the world mostly from Spanish-speaking countries like Ecuador, and Spain, but so many more. The two conversations that we had on TalkAbroad were about our Family on the first one, and for the second the topic was food and daily routines and health.

At the beginning of my time in Spanish 102 I did not feel confident in my ability to converse in Spanish. From answering questions to asking questions I have really just struggled the most with that through this class. I believe that having to talk in Spanish during the class really started to help me gain confidence in my Spanish speaking abilities, while there were multiple weeks between TalkAbroad conversations I believe that I improved so much just from going to class and talking and answering questions in Spanish. The most difficult portion of TalkAbroad was understanding the questions that were asked of me, the way that I improved this portion of the conversation is by studying the vocabulary associated with the topic that was presented and I believe that this choreographed a better more meaningful conversation between me and my partner. My first TalkAbroad conversation was tough I was not prepared for the tempo of speech my partner had she did eventually slow down to help me understand more of the questions she had at hand. The first partner was an older lady from Ecuador which was a great experience to be able to talk to someone from another country together. The second conversation was with a younger lady from Mexico and she had a slower tempo and was much easier to understand so I could answer her questions appropriately. For both conversations on TalkAbroad, I would try and talk more and ask more questions that would help me get to know my partner even more.

Presentational Speaking

During my time in Spanish 102, presentational speaking was a steeple for learning how to form sentences in Spanish and convey thoughts in our non-native tongue. One of the presentations speeches that we covered in this class was in Module 3 Unit 8 where we learned about food and the use of past-tense words. The following is a word document with the video of my presentation embedded, where I describe a dish that I made the night prior utilizing past-tense verbs of how I prepared my dish and why I enjoy making Turkey Burgers and sweet potato fries.

This presentation was difficult, not the most difficult portion of this class but one that had its fair share of challenges. While I was preparing for this presentation I wrote out in Spanish my thoughts that I wanted to display during this assignment. The arduous part of this presentation for me was memorizing what I wrote out and how to pronounce the past-tense verbs properly, but with ample planning, I was able to practice each verb countless of times to understand my presentation fully and produce a well-rounded assignment. The presentation itself was not all that challenging, I believe that the portion I excelled the most at was the proper use of vocabulary. The most important part of this assessment was the vocabulary and the proper use of past-tense verbs which I think I did pretty well. The only part I would do differently next time is to be more vocal and try and remove some of the pauses between some of the sentences during the speech. I think during the presentation I paused between sentences four to five times during the three-minute piece and I think that it took away from the overall showcase of information in the presentation, I would try structuring my thoughts better so I know what sentence would come next to present a more formal conversation.

Presentational Writing

In Spanish 102, one written project for Module 4 Unit 9. This project entailed a flyer of sorts for people suffering from an illness that was either mental or physical. In the self-written flyer, we needed to inform the population of the symptoms of our chosen illness and recommendations to help alleviate the sickness.

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Spanish 102 is filled with a lot of very well-designed assignments to challenge the student and display what they have learned through the course work. After the first written project, I struggled with how to properly form sentences in Spanish but some well-needed studying and preparation for writing in Spanish, helped me succeed in the second written project. I believed that I exceeded at using formal commands and just memorizing the formula that was provided for us while learning how to use these commands. Spanish is very simple to write since all the words to help you convey your thoughts can be put into a formula to make it make sense in your conversations. Next time I think that a way to improve is by learning even more formal commands to help provide a more diverse vocab to showcase how well I understand the language.

Interpretive Listening

While in Spanish 102, we had a plethora of videos and other things to listen to fully understand the culture of certain countries around the world. In this video, we were instructed not fully understand every word that was spoken since the women in the video presenting were speaking very fast.

Listening in my opinion is the hardest portion of speaking Spanish. This was the most difficult part of the class from the videos we needed to listen to, to just simple questions asked by my professor. During this video, it is difficult to fully understand everything that she is saying but some of the portions you can understand and if you have enough vocabulary down you can actually understand the overall topic she is addressing. The most interesting portion of this video is about Tapas bars in Spain and how they are run from just eating all the things you want and you present the worker with toothpicks and they charge you accordingly. The biggest takeaway I had from this video was that you do not need to understand everything in a conversation as long as you can understand just a couple of words it will help you understand the overall topic of the conversation and this helps you by providing the ability to be a part of a given conversation. The growth displayed in line with this video is the second and third time I watched and listened I started understanding more and more of what the presenter was saying in the span of the video.

Interpretive Reading

During this semester there were a lot of things that we have read in Spanish 102. One article that stuck out to me is during our studies of mental and physical sickness. A pamphlet that we have read displays recommendations for staying safe if you are sick. With an enhanced focus on formal commands for the recommendations.

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Reading this pamphlet was easy to understand with illustrations embedded to help showcase the meaning of each recommendation. The only part that was unclear was the meaning of certain commands used, but after studying the verbs and finding their meanings I eventually fully understood each and every recommendation presented in the pamphlet. It is very interesting that the context clues presented in the pamphlet help you understand the recommendation without knowing the definition of the command used. The biggest takeaway from this pamphlet was that even if you do not fully understand something context clues and illustrations really help you realize what each recommendation is about. I believe that I have grown due to the fact that at the beginning of this semester if I observed this pamphlet I would have not understood one word, but now at the end I understand almost every word presented.