Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Throughout this course we watched several videos to help us understand the Spanish culture better. Some of those videos included information about the food, relationships between people, and how different societies work. Watching these videos really helped me understand how intimate relationships are between Spanish individuals, and allowed me to see all the different types of ways the greet individuals. I also learned about a lot of traditional foods about different regions, and what all goes into cooking and preparing that food. I found this information to be really interesting, because food can differ so much according to region.

Engaging in Communities

I think it is important to engage with your community as best you can, because that is where you live and you should feel comfortable in it. When learning through this course, at my job I was able to communicate with more and more individuals as I learned more. This was really exciting to me, because we get a lot of construction workers and truckers at my job that only speak Spanish and I was finally able to communicate efficiently with them and hold a conversation. I would love to eventually branch outside of my immediate community, and be able to use my knowledge of the Spanish language in other locations or regions.

Interpersonal Communication

This semester I talked to individuals through TalkAbroad. I was able to talk to two individuals, each interesting and different in their own way and they came from completely different regions. I also engaged in a few discussion boards between classmates, that allowed me to talk and answer questions that they would have.

When doing the TalkAbroad conversations, I was initially very nervous as I have not done something like that previously. However, when speak to the individuals I, for the most part, really enjoyed the conversations I had. I also participated in discussion boards, that allowed me to engage with my classmates and have conversations with them through video. These were easier for me, because I was not talking to a live person but just replying to questions and ideas. I had some difficulty in the smoothness of my speaking, when doing the TalkAbroad conversations. I really enjoyed hearing new vocabulary, and different pronunciations to the region.

Presentational Speaking

For this course, the students engaged in a few verbal presentational activities, and those were done as pre-recorded conversations. I really enjoyed hearing about classmates, and being able to respond to them in video format for different assignments.