Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Address the reflection exercises in each of the following sections. For each section, you will need to embed portions of these assignments and activities as artifacts to substantiate your reflection. Then, at the end of each section, include a link to the document or embed it as a PDF.
Novice_Mid_LF_final-bd_jul2018-Eportfolio-1-1Tutorials are available:
- Embedding a PDF
- Embedding Media (Images, Audio)
- Embedding a Video
An Effective Reflection Is
This semester I feel is a buildup from last semester in terms of the material, meaning the content we learned last semester enabled me the fundamentals to succeed during this semester. We are using everything that we have learned last semester and applying those skills and learned content to the material that we are working on this semester. The challenges I have faced this semester involved fill in the blank in the lingo learning activities where we have to conjugate the verb in the appropriate form. Also, learning the different ways to conjugate a verb is difficult at first as well due to how many ways you can conjugate them to make it fit the sentence. Filling in the blank is a bit of a challenge for me because most of the time if the sentence does not give me clear clues or hints on how to determine the correct verb to conjugate I cannot figure out what verb to use because I do not understand nor know what the sentence means. I think this challenge can be overcome by simply reading a bunch of words in Spanish just to become more familiar with Spanish vocabulary.
One thing I feel I have gotten the hang of is the meaning of the verb forms such as yo, tu, el, ella, ello, ellas, ellos, nosotros, vosotros, and others. You have to understand how these verbs work in order to fit them into sentences which I feel I’m not super good at yet because of a couple of factors but I am getting the hang of it at this point. Another thing about learning the Spanish language which I feel I’m pretty good at now is the pronunciation of the Spanish alphabet which enables me to be able to pronounce words in Spanish but one thing about it is it takes adjustment to be able to pronounce words and letters and Spanish. You have to open your mouth more and project your voice a little bit so that the listener or who ever you have a conversation with in Spanish can understand you. A weakness of mine I think I need a bit of practice of is being able to differentiate the subject and the pronoun in Spanish. This is something you have to pay close attention to determine what verb and what verb form to use to make things make sense.
At the beginning of the semester we had the opportunity to practice word pronunciation in Spanish as well as being able to open your mouth and be clear. We did this with the first Proyecto assignment which was dealing with the Spanish alphabet but the main focus was word pronunciation. As I did this activity I can tell my word pronunciation has improved since I first started learning Spanish, my pronunciation has become clear and firm. Of course my professor offered some helpful tips with pronouncing certain letters I thought were helpful and it did help. We did this assignment in the very beginning of the semester. To believe it or not it did not take long at all for me to learn the pronunciation of the Spanish alphabet but I did have to practice a bit to get the hang of it.
Artifacts
Instructions
Interpersonal Communication
I did a Talk Abroad which was a conversation about our personal information, family, interests, and so on. The personal information I shared in the conversation of course consisted of my name, where I am from, and where I go to school. The information I shared about my family were their names and what their interests are as far as things they enjoy doing. Also, I shared my personal interests which consisted of some of the same things my family likes. Specifically, the names I mentioned in my family were Dwayne, Ebony, Delores, and Floyd whom are my Mom and Dad along with my Grandparents.
The things I picked up on or learned about myself in this Talk Abroad assignment were I notice I tend to repeat the same information over and over again. I also find myself doing this while having conversations with my professor. Not only that, last semester leading up to the peak of this semester when I do these conversations I notice that when I am not sure how to answer a certain question I tend to try to answer with the best of my ability and share extra information that is not related to the question which I think changes the direction of the conversation. So I think that is something I can definitely work on is paying attention to important pieces of information the person is asking for so that way I can be more clear with my responses rather than being all over the place with extra information. I think this can cause a lot of confusion in a conversation as well. I find this to be an obstacle for me, understanding how to answer questions and ask the same question back.
On the other hand, while having the Talk Abroad conversation about personal information, family, interests, and hobbies, I am pretty good at recognizing cognates when my partner uses them. I did well with this because when someone uses cognates, which are words that look like words in English it’s easy to recognize those words especially if my partner is not speaking too fast. As far as what I would do differently next time, I think I need to spend more time reviewing sentence structure in terms of recognizing the subject, verb, and object as well as vocabulary which I think is an excellent foundation to break the habit of repeating the same information over and over. Overall, it was a fun experience having a conversation with someone I did not know in Spanish. Not only that, they seemed to be very nice and was firm and clear when they were speaking.
Presentational Speaking
https://www.blackboard.odu.edu/ultra/courses/_399751_1/cl/outline?legacyUrl=~2Fwebapps~2Fgradebook~2Fdo~2Fstudent~2FviewGrades%3Fcourse_id%3D_399751_1%26callback%3Dcourse (Communication Assignment Jan 24, 2022)
This semester I did a couple of presentational speaking activities and one of them were about sharing information about my family. The family members I mentioned in this activity were my Mom and Dad and Grandparents. I shared their names, their interests, and things they enjoy doing such as hobbies.
Another presentational speaking assignment completed this semester was Proyecto 10 which was sharing your imagined future profession once we graduate. Specifically we were required to include what we studied using preterite, what we do in that profession using present tense, and what we are doing now using present progressive.
Another presentational activity completed was the first one where we went through and pronounced a set of words to test our pronunciation skills. While completing the activity, I took my time, pronounced the words nice and clear so that you could understand the words.
One thing that I think was a bit of a challenge for me and this goes for quite of few of the Proyecto assignments, I think the fact that I don’t really spend a lot of time going through reviewing the vocabulary introduced causes me to take longer than it should on the assignments. As well as the fact that there are a lot of things I do not know how to say in Spanish, otherwise if I did I would be able to put information in a lot of different structures to make it more interesting and engaging. I excelled at being able to communicate the information without having to pause a lot nor look away from the camera which is something I find myself doing while having conversations in Spanish with professor.
Good thing about the Proyecto 10 assignment, for me there was nothing really challenging about it as we were only required to share three specific pieces of information using the preterite and present progressive forms. The things I excelled at in this assignment was using the proper verb forms and sharing the right information related to my profession so that the sentences would make sense. A couple of things I would do differently next time is try to provide a little more information to make it more interesting, speak more firmly, and loosen up a bit. I say that because although I sit up straight, as I watch my recording I see that I am a bit tensed up rather than relaxed.
The first communication assignment was not challenging to me as it was just pronunciation. My growth from the assignment comes from being able to pronounce the words firmly without stumbling or pausing which is something I still do in conversations. I would say this assignment was fairly easy because it was the same one from last semester.
Presentational Writing
A presentational writing activity completed this semester was my el resfriado infographic. With this particular assignment, I shared information regarding a concept of health and well-being in which I chose tener el resfriado which means having a cold. I gave a brief description of what it is, the symptoms, causes, treatments, as well as an interesting fact.
This assignment has enabled my growth in elaborating on having a cold, using the verb forms to describe the condition of having a cold. What became easier were the meanings of the illnesses, symptoms, and treatments of having a cold. This wasn’t necessarily difficult at first, it was just about becoming familiar with the new words. Another thing I would say was difficult was recognizing how to structure sentences as far as where to put the subject, verb, and object. This isn’t necessarily related to the infographic but it’s something my professor spoke to me about and made an interesting point. In Spanish when it comes to the structure of sentences, the subject, verb, and object can go in any order. As far as the infographic assignment, I excelled at incorporating the required verb forms with the required information such as the description, symptoms, causes, treatments, and an interesting fact. I excelled at this because I was familiar with words I have been using as well as words that fit the content of the assignment. A way I could do better next time and knowing the meanings of more words so that way I can make my sentences longer even though I am a beginner.
Interpretive Listening
The only kind of interpretive listening activities completed this semester were listening to audio recordings in Lingro Learning. Those activities we listened to were using multiple verb forms. Most of them were multiple choice and fill in the blank activities where we had to listen to what we hear and select or fill in the blank with the correct verb form based on what we heard or read.
The different audio recordings we listened to as mentioned above were multiple different verbs forms or sentences using verb forms such as yo, tu, el ella usted, nosotros, nosotras, vosotros, vosotras, ellos, ellas, ustedes. All of these verb forms incorporated with a lot of different concepts like well being, health, illnesses, sysmptoms, causes, treatments, foods, parts of the body, and many more. What I found difficult listening to these recordings while completing Lingro Learning activities this semester was recognizing key pieces of information because I tend to listen and pay attention to the whole thing rather than important pieces of information. So what I am now doing is picking out key information and using the required verb form based on that information. What I found most interesting is becoming familiar with the illnesses, symptoms, treatments, well being, health, and parts of the body in Spanish. I see Spanish just continues to build up from here. When listening to audio recordings it’s important to get in the habit of paying attention to the key parts. How I have grown listening to the audio recordings is recognizing verb forms I am familiar with being used.
Interpretive Reading
Interpretive reading activities I did this semester included discussion board posts and a few Lingro Learning activities involving research. I researched popular dishes made in Spain as well as sports played in Spain.
Nothing was really challenging about these activities, they were fairly simple in which the discussion boards just require your thoughts to the questions being asked and the Lingro Learning research activities is based on what you read on Google. One thing I found interesting is that in Spain, some of the same sports played in Spain are also played in the U.S such as football, soccer, swimming, and basketball. One take away is U.S and Spain have similarities.
When you have finished adding content to this page, delete all the instructions except the link to the Modes of Communication.
When you have finished adding content to this page delete all the instructions except the link to the Modes of Communication.