Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

I have always been interested in foreign cultures, so a lot of the information Profesora Crites shared with us for our discussion boards were really interesting for me. Another that has aided me in understanding different cultures and their perspectives is genuinely just reading. One of the best books for that type of exposure to foreign ideas and perspectives that I have ever read was The Discovery of France by Graham Robb. Another thing that has helped has been travel. I was very lucky to be able to travel through Europe for a week. I travelled through Italy, into France, took a brief sojourn into the Principality of Monaco, and ended my time in Europe in Spain.

I have never held any love for stereotypes, not necessarily out of a politically correct mindset, but more out a desire to be precise and accurate when referring to things. That’s one of the reasons why I enjoy ODU so much, I genuinely really enjoy being exposed to new and different ideas. Because of that, I loved the short discussion board assignment we had to do on the rivalry between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. It’s always amazing to see how history, especially for things that feel as far away as the Spanish Civil War (even if, historically speaking, it was really a rather recent event), can shape such modern activities. Being able to travel was also amazing because I got to witness some of the manmade and natural beauty that exists within Spain, from the caves of Majorca, to the Cementiri de Montjuïc in Barcelona. Here is an example of my discussion board post about the Real Madrid and FC Barcelona rivalry:

“I don’t think the people of Spain take their feud to any new heights. For a long time, people in America would swarm the fields when their baseball team won, and have you ever seen hockey players fight? No, there is a rivalry between Real Madrid (as opposed to Fake Madrid?) and Barcelona, but it seems to be one of mutual respect and competition for self betterment, not out of any malice… Yo prefiero ver peliculas, pasear an bicicleta, nadar en la piscina (en el verano), y ir de excursion a las montañas. Especialmente ahora, gasto mas de mi tiempo en mi casa que cualquier otro lugares.”

Engaging in Communities

Social theory dictates that community engagement arises only within healthy peoples. A healthy community that engages with itself will be successful where others fail for no other reason than the fact the voice of the common good will be heard. When that happens, when the common good is heard and known, communities thrive and prosper. This is true for community service in your own city, voting in a national election, and talking with people from other countries while travelling.

I, unfortunately, have been unable to engage with the community as of late do the Covid-19 pandemic, but before that, I always volunteered to give out gifts to the less fortunate during the winter holidays, to provide food to those who would otherwise go hungry on Thanksgiving, and to make sure that those without homes get food and water when I can afford to give it. Equally, it’s always interesting to learn what people in other countries think about America.

Interpersonal Communication

During these difficult times, I think we have all become very well acquainted with Zoom, others have used WebEX, and others have simply recorded their lectures. The audio visual video conferences like Zoom and WebEX are when people miles and miles away turn on their cameras and talk to each other over the internet. It’s simple, effective, and has been in use since far before the Corona Virus. Discussion boards are when people type out there ideas and can respond to the ideas of others as well.

Zoom is a tool that we unfortunately did not use in this course. I feel that it is a necessary tool for many students, myself included. Students like myself benefit from hearing the ideas of our teachers, though to be fair, that is the job of a teacher, to teach us about the things we’re supposed to be learning. Education becomes more enlightening when we are actually able to discuss the content of the class with our professors (or profesoras). It makes us understand the material better and means that we still retain the information when it comes to test time.

Discussion boards posts were always fun, but not challenging. They are obviously meant to meant to accommodate lectures which the videos on Blackboard were meant to simulate. Each one has provided another little glimpse into the life and culture of Spain and other Spanish speaking countries. I, personally, excelled at them because I always enjoyed them and because I was not given five minutes to complete the exercise, so I usually ended up having fun while doing the work. If I had to do something differently in the future, it would really just be to try to understand what was expected of me during the course better. There were certain inconsistencies throughout the course that affected my grade, and if I had to take the course again, I juts like to think that I would not let those things affect my grade. Here is a picture of the opening slide of one of Profesora Crites’ recorded lectures:

Presentational Speaking

This semester I completed several presentational activities for my classes, including some for my Spanish class. I read the alphabet in Spanish, had a conversation with my professor, and had a conversation with my partner. These were recorded activities, only two of which I was able to plan for and practice what I would say beforehand. Here is the script of my second entrevista assignment as that is the one I struggled the most with:

In my first entrevista, I was mostly dealing with my own nerves. It was not difficult to study the content since we had only gone over the basics. The second entrevista was the most enjoyable, though, as I got to play two people. My partner did not respond to my emails so I had act like Gollum/Smeagle from Lord of the Rings and just have a conversation wit myself, and yes, it was just as ridiculous as you think it was. I struggled most with remembering my lines since I was speaking for two. In my third entrevista I had a partner who was very responsive and actually took the first step to reach out to me. We gave our presentation on two kids meeting at a college orientation in a Spanish speaking country, and it was quick, easy, and fun. I mostly struggled with not having the same control over the lines as I did in the second one, but I still did just fine.

Presentational Writing

I did not complete any presentational writing as defined on our Modes of Communication pdf, but I did complete many discussion board posts that functioned in a similar manner, but they were two-way. They required us to analyze texts and videos and talk about what we learned in them. Other than that, we completed no presentational writing during our course.

They were fun and allowed us to be a little creative in our writing as opposed to telling the computer what Selina is doing with her family at the lake. I was a welcome breath of fresh air from the work we otherwise doing for the class. The difficulties lay in understanding the Spanish of the speaker and writing. However, since our answers were mostly in English, answering the questions was the easiest part. The reading and listening were completed by simply rereading and writing until I understood what was being said. I could do better, next time by attempting to be more thorough in responses. Here is one of my Blackboard discussion responses:

“I definitely would not feel comfortable doing that. I have done that once with my aunt, I don’t know why, maybe she just got back from traveling, but it was weird and threw me for a loop. I’m wary of even telling people that I know where I live, much more so with a total stranger, though I may tell them the state I live in. It seems to be very friendly and is a great way to establish a bond fast, just kissing them, but especially in the current social and pandemic climate, greeting someone with a kiss just seems like a bad idea all around. I imagine that I would feel differently if I spent a long enough time in a country that does this, but right now, with me being born and raised in America, it just seems weird.”

Interpretive Listening

This semester, I do not recall any interpretive listening other than what we went over in our VHL assignments. In those, we had to listen to people talking in Spanish an answer questions based on what we heard.

I cannot remember everything we listen to over the semester, but we listened to people talking gyms, radio stations, and their plans. Sometimes, a word was said that I did not know and sometimes the person speaking would speak quickly or in an accent that I could not understand. Those were most difficult parts of the interpretive listening assignments. I overcame by replaying whatever I had to until I understood what was said. Ultimately, the listening assignments always let me know what I had to practice and review on before the big test, so each time was a valuable learning activity. Here is the script of the first listening activity on VHL.

Interpretive Reading

This semester we had many reading activities. Sometimes we read the scripts of short videos, these helped us in our activities that required us to answer questions based on those videos if we could not understand what was being said. We also read supplementary information that was added on to material we had already learned.

For the most part I enjoyed the reading parts far more than the listening ones. With the reading, the words stay there and do not move, they are not changed by accents, so as long as you can read them, you can understand what is going on. It is also far easier if you are not strong in Spanish as you can move slowly and use context clues to figure out what is being said. I did not think that anything was unclear to me for the reading parts, it was all rather straightforward. The only difficulties would have been not understanding words, but I overcame those challenges with notes and the vocabulary page for the unit. I always tried to answer without help first though since that is the best to learn. I found the reading on the Real Madrid and FC Barcelona the most compelling, as previously stated many times. I think it’s probably due to my love and fascination with history, and that is such a modern link to the past. The reading was always just challenging to let me know what I needed to brush up on, as it was with the listening. While I have enjoyed each reading assignment, I am not sure that I have grown from each one. This is an example of one of our readings: