Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

As my background being Hispanic, I can understand the culture perspectives. The Hispanic culture places strong values on family. For me growing up it’s always been about family, respecting your elders, and knowing that your family will always be there. As I learn about different Spanish countries, I can see that we may do things the same or different ways but at the end it’s the same thing. 

Engaging in Communities

A importance of engaging in my immediate community was about two years ago, My son volunteered me to be team mom on his baseball team. I am a very shy person so it took a lot of me to be this team mom. I never know that I could grow out of my shyness. I had just amazing time with the kids on his team. I thank my son all the time for pushing to do something I would have never done myself! 

Interpersonal Communication

This semester I had to complete two TalkAbroad assignments. TalKAbroad is a site where you are able to have a tele-collaborative conversation with with a native speaker from a Spanish speaking country. As the student, you set up a time with a native speaker of your choice to complete this assignment. The conversations are no more than 15 minutes long, and you are able to see one another face to face. The first assignment was discussing social media, and the second assignment was a conversation about your home. In my first TalkAbroad assignment, I was so anxious and worried about the unknown, mainly because I would be speaking with someone in another country that I didn’t know. It was very difficult for me to just be myself.

In my second assignment, I felt more relaxed and prepared. I knew what to expect and could be myself. It was like talking to a friend that I haven’t seen in a while. I learned that no matter who you are having a conversation with, you should always be yourself.

Presentational Speaking

Mi Casa Ideal was one of the presentational speaking activities that I had to complete this semester. The assignment was a PowerPoint video of the ideal house that I would like to have one day. It included pictures and a description and was written in Spanish.

In the Mi Casa Ideal PowerPoint presentation, my challenges were uploading my video as a PDF file and also speaking slower than normal. I tend to speak fast and get tongue tied when I’m nervous, especially when I’m recording myself. I have overcome my challenges by researching and learning how to import a file into a PDF and also slowing down when speaking in another language so that others can understand me.

 

Presentational Writing

A presentational writing assignment that I have completed this semester is the blackboard post of Mis Celebraciones Favoritas. I learned that in different cultures there are different celebrations for everything. In this assignment I had to pick my favorite celebration and write about it in Spanish. This activity was a little difficult for me because I’m not fluent writing in Spanish. There were times I had to reread it more than one time to make sure my spelling was correct.

Interpretive Listening

Interpretive listening activities that I have completed this semester were some videos that was provided to me on my VHL central website and from my professor. This listening activities explain to us different verb usage and different vocabulary. A challenge for me while listening is that I would try to write down the examples instead of listening first and the going back to write them down. I started to listen to the activities first and then going back a second or third time to write down my examples. The most interesting thing was having the ability to go back and re-listened to them. My takeaway was listen first then write. 

Interpretive Reading

La Casa Colorada is an interpretive communication activity that I read this semester. It is a colonial house located in Santiago, Chile. It was built in 1769.

While reading this activity, there were certain words that I had difficulty pronouncing, and that came as a real challenge to me. I fluently speak Spanish because I grew up in a household with Spanish speaking parents. However, reading does not come so easy to me at times. I overcame this difficulty by reading more articles in Spanish. The most interesting thing to me about La Casa Colorada is that it still exists today.

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