Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Reflection

I took Spanish 101 in the Spring semester of 2020. I had already taken Spanish courses in high school, however, I was pushed further into different cultures and reinforced the basics I had forgotten. I thought that since I had past experience in Spanish courses that I could breeze through the class. When the pandemic hit, I lost even more motivation to keep up with this class. Although I had maintained a good grade throughout the semester, I wasn’t putting all the effort I could have been. I hit a breaking point with all of my courses and realized that I had to push through to achieve the goals I had set for myself.

The workload for this course was a shock, but all work assigned was necessary for the material to really stick. Once we transferred from in-person to online, my professor, Ms. Vera-Guerrero, was an amazing help with letting me make up tests and helping me when I was sinking into my lack of motivation state. From the first oral test that we had to the last one over zoom, I saw major improvements from what I thought I had before. My confidence in speaking grew immensely, my analyzing skills, and my ability to expand on topics was refined by the course.

Artifacts

This was my final composition for the Spanish 101 course. Before I had taken the class, I struggled with writing especially. Unfortunately, I don’t have any documents of papers I’ve written before back in high school, but for a beginning course, I am proud of the amount of improvement this assignment shows.

Composition-2-Spanish-101

Activities

Exploring Culture

One of the cultural activities that stood out to me was the history and tradition of last names in the Spanish culture. Our professor gave the example of her name, Ms. Vera- Guerrero, which is a reflection of her family. I learned that the tradition of two last names originated from Spanish speaking cultures.

Up until that point, I didn’t think much about my last name or my own family’s history of our last name. My mother is Puerto Rican, so this practice of two last names isn’t practiced among our family, but it brought us closer to learn more about our family name. This opportunity of learning about my own culture and others grew my interest to educate myself from other points of view.

Engaging in Communities

What I enjoy most about taking Spanish courses is that it helps me explore a different side of my family and self. Parts of my family on my mother’s side don’t speak English at all, for example, my grandmother. When I was a kid, she wasn’t able to fully speak or ask me all of the questions she wanted to. Given this opportunity to not only learn the language, but to tour the culture, has closed this gap that has been between my family and me. Although this is just a beginning Spanish course, I’ve been more involved with my own family community more than ever. My mother has also introduced me to more cultures, ways to improve my speaking and other individuals that are from different Spanish speaking countries.

This is my family and I enjoying quenepas, a Spanish fruit my grandmother brings to us on special occasions.

Interpersonal Communication

In class, we went around and talked about what our majors were and what classes we were taking to practice using the verb tomar and the vocabulary of school courses.

We did most of our assignments for this class in person, so with each interaction with another person in our classroom, my confidence has grown. The assignment I included above is one of my favorite topics we did during the semester, so it eased the pressure I usually feel when I speak Spanish.

Other communication activities were practicing how to name things in classroom and where they were, our families and more about the origin of ourselves. Personal and fun topics like the ones I listed lifted the weight I had from Spanish courses I had taken before. Taking the content we learned and using/teaching it in fun ways brought out a new side of my confidence I didn’t even know I had. In the future, I’d like to explore other topics that challenge my usual answers and force me to use critical thinking skills to answer.

Presentational Speaking

During quarantine, my friends and I would make Power Points to present to each other over zoom. It wasn’t the usual types of presentations we did for school, but more on fun topics like, “What Would You Do With A Million Dollars,” or my favorite, making a Power Point for someone else to present.

My friend, Grant, took French throughout high school, so I knew I had to make a presentation in full Spanish. He had no idea what he was saying, but I included things like, “Emily es más inteligente que yo,” or “Emily is more intelligent than me”. After, I presented everything to my friends of what he was actually saying.

This was a fun activity that gave me the opportunity to not only mess with my friend, but to help me not be afraid to speak Spanish in front of multiple people. We didn’t do any presentational activities in this class, but I’m happy I got the chance to show my friends what I’ve learned in this course. At first, I was nervous about sounding weird or dumb in front of my friends, but they supported me through the entire presentation. Every mistake I made, they didn’t react the way that I thought they would, which eased my anxiety that I have when I present in front of people.

For future times in class hopefully, I hope to move over mistakes I make instead of stopping for a reaction. Dealing with my anxiety will become easier the more I present Spanish presentations, so the more practice I get, the less difficult it will be.

Presentational Writing

spanish-101-composition

This composition was my favorite by far. Talking about my family is one of my favorite things to do, Spanish or English. It talks about my family’s names, where they are from, how old they are and their professions.

That assignment was the first composition that I had done, ever. Compared to the final composition I wrote for this course, which I included above, this one doesn’t expand much other than what was required for the assignment. I didn’t know how to start the assignment off or how to organize it in an understandable, cohesive way. Looking back, there are a lot of things I would add, change and delete, but for my first composition, I am proud that my anxiety and inexperience didn’t come out in the assignment.

I am lucky that I have a big family and a lot to include, but it translated into a lot of information in the composition. For the future, I would include more about what my family is like, separate the information so that it’s easier to read, and use different verbs and connectors to demonstrate vocabulary strengths.

Interpretive Listening

Throughout the semester, our professor would give oral tests where she would read off questions and we would write down the answer.

Outside of class, through VHL Central, we would have listening assignments at the end of each topic, if not, at the end of each chapter. Unfortunately, I can’t retrieve those homework assignments or obtain the questions our professor would read to us for tests. One thing I learned and will carry with me to future courses, is to read the questions before listening to the audio. Sometimes questions are out of order or I wouldn’t be able to go back and listen, so I would miss the question completely. Reading directions, background or overall the assignment before listening to the audio was a skill I picked up after the first initial mistakes.

Another skill I learned and had to practice was focusing on only the things I know and using context to figure out other parts of the audio or speaker. Taking too much time to make sense of words I had no clue of took up time I could have been using to comprehend the question itself. The skills I learned seemed like common sense before, but took a lot of practice and reinforcement to keep. Now, I move through audio and listening assignments quicker and less complicated.

Interpretive Reading

VHL Central was a huge center of where most of our readings and cultural activities. We would have to read a cultural explanation or a skit based on what we were learning at the time, then answer questions or fill in blanks about the reading.

Reading is the biggest challenge I faced throughout any Spanish course I’ve taken. The challenges I faced was being overwhelmed with text, not focusing and breezing over text, or misinterpreting questions and answering wrong. A skill I learned to over come being overwhelmed by the amount of words was separating the text to do in sections. This also assisted to stop me from skimming the text and being able to focus on the main ideas of the reading. As I discussed above, reading the questions and determining what it was asking for helped me interpret the text better.

What I found most interesting about all of the assignments I did was that what I thought was common sense or skills I developed in English, had to be reinforced while learning Spanish. Trying to treat learning English and Spanish the same way was one of the biggest mistakes I made initially. Improving my English and learning a completely new language can’t be taught or practiced in the same way, which was my downfall. Although they were assignments focused towards reading, I enjoyed learning about the cultures during the way. My attitude and use of skills has changed completely since the start of the course, which will influence how I handle all assignments in the future.