Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
Throughout this semester, my knowledge of Spanish culture has flourished as I have not only grown in understanding more about Spanish culture that I was previously familiar with, but also within other Spanish cultures that I didn’t know much about before.
My personal exploration of Spanish culture through means of self-driven research was the biggest contributing factor to my expansion of learning. Simply looking up things on Google, whether that be questions about specific Spanish customs or random questions stemmed from pure curiosity truly helped me throughout the semester engage in learning about Spanish culture. Exploring the local community, such as international grocery stores and traditional Spanish restaurants, also opened my eyes to how rich the culture is and how easily it can be discovered if one simply puts in a little effort.
Engaging in Communities
It is crucial to explore and engage within local and global communities because it helps to establish a better understanding of others around us, while also opening our minds to cultural practices or customs that are different from us. By exploring these communities, we can grow as individuals while also growing closer to others around us to produce a more unified and understanding global communities.
I had the pleasure of traveling to Spain during the Summer of 2018, visiting landmark locations such as the capital of Madrid, Toledo, Granada, and Córdoba. While it was only just a class trip to some, it truly expanded my knowledge of Spanish culture in a way that could not be replicated within a classroom setting. The people I met and the experiences I had there are truly unforgettable to me and have changed the way I view Spanish culture as a whole.
Interpersonal Communication
TalkAbroad allowed me to connect and have a conversation with another person in a Spanish-speaking country, a truly rare occurrence that most students don’t get to experience. I also used the class discussion board to talk with other students in my class, helping me learn to communicate more effectively in Spanish with people I know. Using services such as TalkAbroad and the discussion board in class truly helped me expand on my knowledge of Spanish culture and my abilities as a student to communicate effectively as a whole.
The TalkAbroad assignments seemed scary at first, considering I had never really had any experience talking to anyone directly from another country who didn’t speak English. During the first TalkAbroad assignment, I found that it went well overall but there were a few things I knew I needed to work on such as being more confident in my speaking abilities and even rephrasing some things differently; however, during the second assignment, I found that it went a lot smoother as I had improved a lot since the last assignment. My speaker was also very helpful and helped me stay on topic if I found that I didn’t know what to say. If I were to do it again, I would also practice my speaking abilities more to make sure I was confident in what I was saying and also so the conversation would run as smoothly as possible.
The discussion board posts were helpful in that I had a little more time to figure out what I was going to say, but they were still difficult due to me actually having to write out responses rather than just say them. As the semester progressed, I found that I had gotten increasingly better in my responses while they were also longer. I had found that my grammar abilities improved over the course of the semester while writing the responses had also become an easier task.
Presentational Writing
During the semester, I participated in several different writing activities such as Composition writing and answering Discussion Board posts.
Composition1-Final-DraftDuring my experience writing these compositions, at first it was kind of difficult to figure out just what I was going to say all while making sure my grammar and spelling was as accurate as possible. As I wrote them though, they became easier to write as I started to have a general idea of what I was going to say all while my grammar continued to improve. I found that I was able to overcome my difficulties by simply practicing my writing skills; even participating in class seemed to help a lot.
Interpretive Listening
I completed several homework assignments throughout the semester on VHL Central such as many listening activities in which I had to listen and respond to the questions asked. I also had to watch videos, such as the one provided below, that I had to then respond to questions about, making sure I was listening carefully to what the people were saying.
Listening to homework assignments or my classmates during class was a great way to help me expand my horizons on understanding Spanish when being heard. It was especially challenging because to me, listening to Spanish is the hardest to interpret because you have to do it as it is being spoken/played which can sometimes go too fast. These listening activities definitely helped me a lot with this issue; I would consider myself vastly improved in my abilities since the start of the semester. I also found these listening activities interesting as they discuss real-life events and places within Spanish culture, making what I was learning something that would actually apply to real-life situations.
Interpretive Reading
During the semester I did several homework activities in VHL Central in which I had to read certain passages, such as the one provided below, in order to be able to answer questions related to them. Reading Spanish material has helped my ability to comprehend written Spanish.
They were somewhat challenging because sometimes I would run across unfamiliar words or phrases. As I did these activities more and more, it became easier to use context clues and use the words that I was familiar with to decipher what the entire text was saying. These were also quite interesting as they were sometimes also about real-life events or actually taken from professional writers or famous works are used. The reading assignments definitely helped increase my Spanish abilities.