Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
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Instructions
Exploring Culture
If I am to be blatant, my understanding of Spanish Culture before taking this class was close to none. I was aware that Spanish was a very different kind of language from English. In that there were masculine and Feminine versions of words. However, I was at that point still not truly fully aware of just how many differences your average Spanish Speaking country has from a cultural perspective from the United States. For example, as a college student I was not aware at all that students living on campus is an unusual thing In Spanish Speaking countries in most of the world. Something else that personally caught my interest was how much Latin America in particular specialized the importance of rest. Having a one to two hour period everyday called a “Siesta” which many countries in Latin America still practice and prioritize to this day.
Personally, doing research for this class on the cultural differences of the Spanish speaking world has opened my eyes greatly to the many unique things that make up both cultures. Also, A personal bias of mine was that every culture for a Spanish speaking country was roughly the same. That is very much not the case as most nations in Latin America all have different ways of just Speaking the language. For example, In Honduras there is a growing trend of young people who prefer to use the formal form to address someone, Usted mostly opting out of using the informal way of addressing someone el. I still don’t understand a whole lot about Spanish culture after this course, but I hope to learn more in the future.
Engaging in Communities
being an active member of your immediate, local, or even Global community is something that everyone should do for multiple reasons. For one, it gets you more connections for all kind of opportunities and obstacles that may pop up later on in life. Also, it is just good for one’s mind, body, and soul to do better in the world.
something I did a long time ago to participate in my local community was helped feed the homeless at my church. this was pre-covid, so my church doesnt open its doors to the homeless much anymore. Which is something I was personally disapproving of.
Interpersonal Communication
I found Interpersonal Communication to be the most challenging, but honestly rewarding portion of learning to grow my Spanish speaking skills in this class. my mother offered to help me Practice Interpersonal communication via basic conversation before this course began. which is something I was more than willing to accept. Because of that I personally feel that I was better able to improve my interpersonal Commnication skills for basic Spanish. While this did offer me an advantage in developing my interpersonal communication. I still feel as if there is much work to be done. not only because this is only Spanish 101, but also because I personally feel as is my interpersonal Communication skills still could have increased this semester. If I had the recording of my conversacion with my professor I would use that as an artifact. However, I cannot obtain the recording right now but during it I was still very visibly a beginner and if there was one thing, I took away from it, it was that I need to practice interpersonal communication in Spanish more.
Presentational Speaking
during the course of this class there were multiple required recordings that fall into the category of Presentational Speaking. The main two more than likely being the two recorded conversacion segments for the class. Which personally I struggled with more in the first then the second. Purely off of the fact that I had learned more basic forms of Spanish communication at that point.
One of the major challenges I experienced with Conversacion one and conversacion two was memorizing the scripts I had written for both videos. I can expand this onto the entire course in general for practicing Spanish as I found that memorizing certain verbs and adjectives was very challenging. I still have not fully memorized what goes where to a certain 100% certainty, but I am confident I will be able to in the future. As my memorization skills did noticeably increase in the two to three weeks between the two assignments. I have also greatly struggled with pronunciation, which is probably expected as I am a beginner to the language. I found myself struggling greatly with the Pronunciation of simple alphabet words in the beginning, although I was able to improve this with a good amount of practice. Through the various recordings that were required during LingroLearning, I struggled more towards the beginning of the course, and also improved as the five-week course went on.
Presentational Writing
In terms of presentational writing, there are few specific assignments from this semester that I can necessarily point towards. The ones that I can think of are during exams when I was tasked with writing a paragraph describing myself in Spanish. Of which for the writing portion of exam two I prepared for and practiced ahead of time by writing on a piece of paper.
The writing portions of the exams were nerve-racking to me at first because I honestly was not prepared for them that much. I was not properly practicing the writing portions on Lingrolearning as they were only Practice. However, I learned my lesson and quickly used those practice sessions to my advantage. Although I would still not say I am a master in basic Spanish conversation, my Spanish has definitly improved with this course.
Interpretive Listening
there were Various forms of Interpretive listening that I used for this semester. most of which were through audio recordings that were a part of the Homework assignments on Lingro learning in which I had to listen to the audio and answer a question pertaining to said audio. another form of interpretive listening that I took upon myself were Spanish audio Cd’s to help with basic year one Spanish. I used them mostly when I was struggling with forms of verbs.
A piece of audio recording that I used this semester more early on was the Spanish Alphabet song on YouTube. This song helped me learn the proper pronunciation of Spanish letters early on and did a decent amount to help me know what to listen for when using interpretive listening in Spanish. the Audio questions on Lingro learning definitly helped me to perfect Interpretive listening for Spanish. As the key to Interpretive listening is not necessarily knowing the entire statement, but keying together what it means from certain key words.
(215) Spanish Alphabet Marching song – YouTube
Interpretive Reading
Interpretive Reading would be a one-way form of communication with a form of media that would require reading. such as a book, an article, story etc. while there were not too many forms of interpretive reading for this course, one that does come to mind is the website of the University of Granada, and how navigating that website was a hard but learning experience since it was all in Spanish. as well as reading an article for a newspaper from Honduras written in Spanish when we had the Spanish search engine results assignment.
Navigating my way Through the University of Granada’s website was indeed very challenging as trying to figure out the differences between ODU’s website and there was almost impossible to complete at first given the overwhelming of Spanish words that I did not yet know. However, using the limited knowledge I have I was able to know what sections of the website were called which and was able to navigate the website just a little easier. I have learned a lot in this course and cannot wait until I learn more in Spanish 102.
Periódicos diarios de Honduras – Hondureños (prensaescrita.com)
A list of archived Honduras newspapers I used for the research a seperate country assignment.