Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Reflection

I took Spanish 102 in the Fall of 2020. As a result of the pandemic and the avoidance of in person classes, this entire course was taken online with zoom meetings. It was a first for everyone, but the semester went really well. I expanded on my Spanish significantly, had more time to study and take my work seriously with a few roadblocks on the way. Although I took a course similar to this one in high school, I was able to dive deeper into the culture aspects of Spanish speaking countries. This course demanded more of my attention than more of my other classes with homework every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Despite limited class time and complete online interaction, I had equal amounts of opportunities to explore the culture and practice the language. The biggest portion of my improvement came from the Talk Abroad sessions and composition assignments. The two aspects in which I needed the most improvement. Writing is the most stressful aspect of the language that I struggle with. Not being able to say it out loud and not hearing it made it difficult to organize my thoughts correctly. However, every challenge I encountered this semester was met with a new skill, especially my writing.

This was the case for most assignments for this course, including the homework and compositions. I tend to be more worried about making mistakes than making an attempt and bouncing back. This course taught me that making mistakes is part of the process and sometimes the only way to learn.

Artifacts

Below is my final draft composition. Out of all of the assignments, I believe this document shows the amount of improvement this class helped me make.

finalcomposition.span102.emilybrooks

Exploring Culture

I got the chance to do a discussion board assignment and research about Brazil and their important monuments, as well as comparing it to monuments I have in the city I grew up in.

I enjoyed being able to research about Brazil and the famous Christ The Redeemer statue. For so long I’ve wondered the history and significance of the monument and I finally got the chance to with this class. The cultural and religious significance this statue has is very moving and amazing. I had to search for local statues/monuments in my area to compare, so I chose our famous Neptune Statue on the boardwalk of Virginia Beach. I was shocked even by some of the information that I never knew about a monument I grew up seeing. Learning about the significance of monuments around the world, even down to my home town, was a fun and educational experience.

discussion-board-4.span-102

Engaging in Communities

This semester, I was able to reach out and help communities in my area. I recently did a food drive with a homeless shelter, where I met a lot of people from Spanish speaking countries. Some couldn’t speak fluent English, and although I’m not able to speak fluent Spanish, we were able to figure out what they wanted as far as meals and clothing goes, a unit we focused on this semester. We aren’t allowed to take any photos at this shelter because of privacy policies, but being able to use what I learned this semester to help out my community was an amazing experience.

Interpersonal Communication

My second and final Talk Abroad assignment was to talk about daily routines during different seasons and what food my partner and me liked/disliked.

This was my favorite assignment of the semester. Everything went smoothly with my partner, Ximena Meza, and I had an amazing time. The fifteen minutes passed by super quickly because of how interested I was in the conversation.

I always imagined that speaking in Spanish in daily life is the same as how it is in class. Those expectations were far from right, speaking Spanish casually doesn’t always have to be perfect. Making mistakes and getting off topic is part of learning about someone’s experiences, country and activities they do in their free time.

For the future, I want to focus on enjoying the conversation more than trying to be perfect. Being a perfectionist at heart isn’t always a good thing, especially when I put that pressure on myself and my partner.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to save the audio from my Talk Abroad interview, but below are some of the questions I prepared for the interview.

talkabroad-questions.spanish102.emilybrooks

Presentational Speaking

During class, we would practice asking each other questions instead of the professor asking us individually. It ranged from topics of food, daily routines or clothing.

Having a classmate instead of my professor ask me questions was interesting but made the environment more relaxed. We would popcorn read and ask questions from student to student. First our professor would call on someone, the student would reply, then the student would ask another student the same or a different question. The best part about this activity was that it allowed people to make mistakes and learn from them in a safe environment. I loved learning my classmates names, what they thought about certain topics and being able to help anyone if they needed it.

Below are examples of questions in our textbook, Aventuras, Fifth Edition (VHL Central) that has some of the practice portions we would have during class.

vhl-questions.spanish-102.emilybrooks

Presentational Writing

In a discussion board, we were assigned to create our own clothing store, give examples of the products we would sell, how much they would cost, and where it would be located.

Discussion boards allow me to relax and create something fun to share with my teacher and classmates. This was one of my favorites because I love clothing, so it was easy to plan out what I wanted to sell, how much I wanted to sell it for and the name of the boutique. Having a relaxed environment meant to reach out to a more creative side of me was more inviting to practice my Spanish.

disc-board-6.-spansih-102.-emilybrooks

Interpretive Listening

VHL Central gave us recordings or videos of conversations and we would have to interpret the information and answer questions.

This semester, a lot of the listening was focused towards conversational speaking. This helped putting learning Spanish into a more casual setting. For example, we had one assignment where a famous soccer player’s mom was being interviewed about her son’s routine. We then had to answer questions in accordance to that conversation. At first it was difficult because of the speed of how they talked, but also because I am a visual learner. Being able to see the information sticks more than hearing. This was a challenge that stuck with me up until the last exam we took. The more I practiced listening through homework and relatives at home, the easier it got to gather context clues and overall the conversation.

Interpretive Reading

We were given letters from a friend to a relative/other friend and had to interpret as well as gather information to answer questions on VHL Central.

Reading has been a struggle for me because I spend a lot of time trying to interpret the whole text instead of just using what I know to find out most of what they are saying, but being able to practice with homework every other night helped develop this skill to overcome the challenge of time. The more I practiced and did my homework, the more consistent my improvement got. Whenever I can’t figure out what a word is now, I use what I’ve learned over the semester to find out what they are talking about.