When I first started my journey through Spanish 101, I was an adult student who had never taken a foreign language course.  I really struggled with putting complete sentences together and listening to complete sentences.  These were my major challenges.  However, I went into the course knowing the benefits of learning Spanish especially with my major being Elementary Education with a minor in Human Services.  I knew that this would greatly improve my degree as I could interact with students’ parents whose native language might be Spanish or even students themselves.  It would open more opportunities as well for teaching English to Spanish speaking people. 

As you watch my artifact videos in the “activities” section of my website, you will be able to watch me grow as a speaker and get more comfortable with not only speaking Spanish but listening as well.  I struggled early on with trying to remember how to connect sentences.  Now, I am fully being able to have a basic conversation and understanding of what was being spoken about.  I also now have the ability to discuss places that I have lived, things I like and dislike, along with being able to write a formal letter of appreciation to those I know best.  I share this artifact in particular because it showcases how far I have come since the start of the semester.  Also, these skills in describing people will transfer over to other conversations I have in the future.

Formal-letter

As an adult student, I have entered the workforce already and have worked in the financial world for the past eight years.  This has allowed me to really appreciate taking the time to learn Spanish as I have witnessed firsthand, clients of mine who speak Spanish but did not understand much English.  Therefore, these clients usually had a family or friend sit with them to translate.  In other cases, when they were by themselves, I was able to call the interpreter hotline that my bank had and have a conversation through an interpreter on the phone.  This process can be less personable as we were speaking through someone else.  So, learning the amount of Spanish that I did this semester in Spanish 101, it will greatly benefit these clients so I can connect with them on a basic level.   I noticed I am better at being able to read Spanish than I am at listening to the words being spoken.  As I get more practice with interacting with people, I will improve in my listening skills even more.  I feel I will do well with greeting clients who are Spanish speaking going forward with ease as that is one of my strengths.

As I watched my conversations clips from the beginning of the semester to now, I got a lot more comfortable with taking my time to think about the question that is being asked and then responding.  I still struggle with getting the time of the day perfect each time and that will be a task I can improve in the future. I did excel at talking about my daily routine and coming up with a calendar of events that happen in my day-to-day life.  For example, writing about what my daughter and wife were doing each day helped me learn how to communicate in Spanish better than if I just tried to learn from making up a scenario. What I found helped me gain a consistent memory of Spanish this semester was in the form of writing out short sentences about my real life events.

Proyecto-3-final

 I also took time to read about colleges in Spain and how they differ to that of the United States.  I was surprised to learn how the Spanish university system has such a rigid structure that students may not be able to change universities during their studies.  I am guessing that is due to the Universities being broken into four types, so it is harder to switch majors or classes, as we do here at ODU.  Then the average of 30 percent students drop out before their course ends was eye opening (Study in Spain, 2022).  I wonder if that is due to having students who want to switch majors into something they are more interested in but since they do not have that option, they have to drop out then reapply to the other university. 

Another activity I completed was giving different likes and dislikes using Spanish. As I look back at this assignment I had struggled with the sentence structure, as you can see in my video I even had to pause a couple times to think about what was to come next. I overcame this struggle by talking out loud about my different hobbies and interests that was not apart of the video to try to become more consistent in speaking Spanish. During each activity through the weeks, I had fun learning a new language and when I was able to meet with my partner that I had for the semester, we would both of our own different strengths and weaknesses that we used to help each other.

References:

Study in Spain. Expatica. (2022, March 29). Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.expatica.com/es/education/higher-education/study-in-spain-101452/

Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication