Exploring Culture

Some products that helped me gain understanding of cultural perspectives was the textbook that we were required to have, Aventuras. This textbook was extremely helpful because it would have sections that would give you more information on Spanish speaking countries and customs. There was more then just grammar and vocabulary.

This product helped me understand attitudes because it would explain how the Hispanic Culture differed from not only American culture, but others as well. It did so using using real world scenarios like ordering at restaurants, bargaining at stores, and going on vacation. It also included information of the history of Hispanic culture and major locations. These real work applications allowed for a more well rounded understanding of the traditions and customs of Hispanic culture.

I do not feel as though my world view was challenged per say. I say this because I am always open and curious to learn about other cultures. I feel as though ones world view would be challenged if they were under the impression that their culture and customs were the only ones of importance. I, however, have never been ignorant to the fact that there are many cultures outside of my own. This has made it so I am willing to constantly expand my world view as I obtain more knowledge.

Engaging in Communities

I find it important to engage in your immediate community in order to constantly keep learning. The only way to do that is to hear from other people and their perspectives. We can not live every type of life during our one lifetime, so it is important to hear the experiences of others who may be different to you. This applies to the global community as well because you will be able to hear what issues may be plaguing other communities. Once you know these issues it becomes easier to be considerate of others and possibly come to new solutions.

Interpersonal Communication

During this semester I was able to participate in two TalkAbroad sessions

TalkAbroad was an experience that I had never had before. It was nerve racking to speak to someone in their Native language when it is not yours. There is tremendous pressure to not offend or come off ignorant. This impeded me minorly because I tend to overthink which affects my confidence in the conversation. I was surprised at how considerate each speaker was. They understood that I was nervous and would prompt me or encourage me throughout the conversation. Speaking to these people helped me gain confidence in my skills as well as show me some areas that I needed to improve upon. Some of these are pronunciation and vocabulary. I tend to know what I want to say and how to say it grammatically. However, key words could be lost, affecting the listener’s understanding. If I were to get the chance again to participate in the TalkAbroad conversations I would go into each conversation with a better “script” in mind. I use that word loosely in the sense that I wouldn’t have a script written out. I would have questions at the ready as well as mental responses. This just ensures that if I do get nervous throughout the conversation that I will have the tools to combat that and be prepared.

Presentational Speaking

In class we typically did speaking with a partner. This would include prompted questions that we would ask and answer. We were also put into different scenarios like ordering at a restaurant, going on vacation, and talking about our daily routines that we would have to speak about in Spanish.

During these speaking exercises it was challenging to assemble sentences and get the construction correct. The placements of things like nouns, adjectives, and subjects are sometimes in different areas when speaking in Spanish then they are in English. I would overcome these struggles by learning to take my time and considered the quality of what I was speaking vs speed. If I were do these differently I would be more confident. I held myself back from speaking because I was nervous about sounding stupid or being incorrect. In a different scenario I would want to go for it and learn from whatever feedback I received.

Presentational Writing

During this semester we had two writing compositions. The first was to be written interview style format where we asked someone to talk about their favorite fashion trends. The next composition consisted of writing a restaurant review where we detailed different aspects of a restaurant of our choosing.

The first composition was easier because we learned a lot of different types of questions we could ask others which was great when asked to write as an interviewer. I learned writing, for me, was a little easier then speaking because I am a visual person. So when I am writing I am able to identify key parts of speech to ensure that I am conjugating properly, and have correct sentence structure. These skills helped me when it came to the second composition because this one required more details. During this composition we described the restaurant’s ambiance, food pricings, service, and music. This was more difficult because the details were important which meant that I needed to have a good understanding of all the vocab at my disposable when writing. This way I don’t use the same adjectives and verbs, and my writing is not just one dimensional.

Interpretive Listening

During this semester we had many VHL assignments and in each of the sections there was always a listening portion. We also listened to Spanish music, and watched skits in Spanish.

The hardest part about the listening activities was the speed at which Native speakers are able to speak at. It is often very quick to my ear which made it difficult to pinpoint certain words. If I was having this difficulty I would listen to selected piece multiple times. This meant that I could listen to different areas each time, and then hopefully piece it all together.

Interpretive Reading

During the course of this semester we had many different areas of reading. The VHL homework would sometimes require you to read about a certain location or activity and then answer questions. We also always had a reading portion within our quizzes.

Reading was also an area that I felt more confident it because once again I am a visual learner. This made it easy to pinpoint words that I did know and then hopefully give enough context to words that I did not know so that I could gather a general meaning. If there were words that I did not know I would use the words around it to help me as well as make educated guesses based on the root of the words. It is also important to keep in mind what the topic of the piece is because that will always help with the context of whatever is written.