Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Instructions

Exploring Culture

A practice that helped me gain understanding of cultural perspectives was the exploring culture assignments in Lingro Learning. I got to do assignments and read paragraphs about the daily life and culture of people in multiple Latin American countries. The paragraphs provided insight into their families, what types of foods were most common in their region, and what medical care they received.

These practices helped me open my mind a little more as to why certain cultures do certain things. Most cultures develop from what is accessible in their region and food is a large portion of that. This helped me understand the attitudes toward certain values in the Hispanic culture and allowed me to reflect on my own culture. The American culture incorporates a few Hispanic values like family. In the Southern region of the United States family is very close and very big much like families in Latin American Cultures. Foods were also similar however I found that Hispanic cultures values traditional meals more than American culture. Hispanic cultures have recipes and spices passed down from generations and that contributes to what they value. I found that seafood was not very common until you got to Spain. The Spanish culture is very into octopus, squid, and other seafood. That is largely because of the location of the country. It has access to many different types of fish in the Mediterranean sea.

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in your community is very important because your community is a reflection of yourself and your peers. You want to do your best to benefit your community so that your community is a benefit to you. Networking in your community is very important and it eventually will help you network into larger communities. Your community also contributes to the global community so the more you engage in your immediate community, the more you engage in the global community.

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad is one of the platforms I used to complete two communication assignments this semester. TalkAbroad is a platform you can use to reserve a 15 or 30 minute session to communicate with another person via video chat. The two assignments I used TalkAbroad for I communicated in Spanish with another person from a Latin American country. I also had an discussion post every week that had me communicate with my other classmates through Canvas.

Each one of these activities forced me to sharpen my communication skills and think about what the other person was saying. The TalkAbroad assignments were challenging but beneficial to me because I had to really focus on what the other person was saying and I had to formulate what I was going to say in Spanish. The most difficult part during the TalkAbroads for me was interpreting. I struggled with trying to pick out key terms and phrases my partner said because they were speaking so fast and fluently. The discussion posts were easier for me because it was more of a relaxed, at your own pace environment. Plus writing in Spanish was much easier for me than speaking. To overcome this I will have to continue to practice speaking with native Spanish speakers so I can learn to recognize key words and phrases.

Presentational Speaking

A presentational speaking activity I completed was one where I was given a list of words that started with each letter of the alphabet and I had to record myself pronouncing those words. This contributed to my pronunciation of words and getting familiar with how to say words I have not seen before.

During this assignment I feel I excelled at pronouncing the words required because I was given time to research and practice. However, when it came to hearing these words being pronounced it took me a little longer to catch on because of some accents and dialect the speaker had. But with some practice and a few more tries I managed to figure it out and retain the information better. This activity allowed me to work on my skills when it came to effectively communicating with other in Spanish. If I didn’t get the pronunciation right then the listener might not understand what I’m trying to say.

Presentational Writing

For this course I was given a number of articles to read and talk about. One article I read was about the medical care in Spain. The article summarized the heath care system in Spain and what parts of health care were free.

It was nice to see that Spanish speaking countries also adopted free health care. Health care being one of the primary issues in the world it would make sense to try to offer as much of it as you can for free. Spain also offers free mental health services that are included. Reading this made me realize how free health care works and I convinced me that other countries should also adopt this policy at least in more general areas of health care. I then had to write about the differences between health care in Spain and the United States and I found that there were quite a few differences. Other than the fact it is free, the way Spain funds their health care is different than I feel the United States would fund free health care. I did not find this activity challenging but I found it very informative. This article broke down almost the entire Spanish health care system and in a way it could be easily understood.

https://www.expatica.com/es/healthcare/healthcare-basics/healthcare-system-101467/

Interpretive Listening

Some interpretative listening activities included audio recordings in Lingro Learning where I was required to listen to a statement or a paragraph someone spoke in Spanish and had to analyze what they said. There were multiple recordings about different subjects throughout the course so I never heard the same thing twice.

This helped me when it came to interpreting what people were saying to me in Spanish. While I had to repeat them quite a few times, I was able to make out most of what they were saying. It helped me learn words I might not hear every day when studying. It also helped me listen to how someone pronounces words and syllables so that I can practice pronouncing those words correctly. This activity was difficult and required a lot of my time. But after a while I got it and never forgot it. I was also able to use some words specific to regions of Latin America in my conversations and relate to who I was talking to. Each activity helped me get more fluent and helped me verbally construct my sentences efficiently.

Interpretive Reading

An interpretive reading activity I did was read my classmates discussion posts in Spanish and respond to them. Each week there was a new article or topic I had to read and respond to with either an opinion or an evaluation of what I read. I also had to respond to at least two of my classmates posts to see what they had to say.

The reading was not too hard in my opinion. Some of the reading was in English as well so that made it easier to use context clues to figure out what was being said. I didn’t typically struggle with the reading assignments in the course. If I saw a word I usually remembered the definition. The reading also helped me grow in the sense of speaking too. If I practiced sounding out the word or phrase it would help me remember how to say that for the next time I came across it.