Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
Since taking this course I have watched more spanish language film and tv. I notice a lot of differences in our cultures like how in english there isn’t a difference in the way you speak informally or formally it is all the same. In Spanish there are specific pronouns, conjugations, and titles all used for the formal way of addressing someone. Watching these films/shows have helped me get a better understanding of how their day-to-day’s are and how they are mostly similar to mine.
Learning about the history and the behind the scenes of these works showed me that the stories are very similar to what we have in America. There’s action, drama, romance and even comedy so it has something for everyone. However It also makes me think about how there are so many people out there who dislike certain people just because of the language they speak and refuse to even watch anything related to it. Many people just find it too hard to have subtitles on while watching and this leads to them missing out on some beautiful pieces of art.
Engaging in Communities
It is important to be involved in your community because it builds a bond with others that can help tremendously especially if a natural disaster or tragedy happens in it. When those things happen it bring people closer together. Having a connection to your community doesn’t have to be local there are many ways one can help out their global community like volunteer work, community service, recycling, etc.
By reaching out to my fellow classmates to get to know them better this helps me build a stronger community within my university. The more students I engage with the more it can grow. Having friends can help me organize fundraisers, start clubs, and clean up our community as a team instead of working alone.
Interpersonal Communication
TalkAbroad is a service that allows you to speak to a native speaker in a language to have a conversation live. It is an example of an interpersonal communication which basically means any form of group work, discussion board posts, presentations, and more. For our many projects we have to comment on our classmates posts in spanish and talk with each other about our individual assignments.
I enjoy interpersonal communication with my classmates and I do feel like I have extremely grown in this department. For me commenting wasn’t too difficult for most of the projects but it was hard to talk in Spanish for the 4th project. The 4th and final project involved me creating a schedule for my week and provide questions about it. It was hard to understand some people’s projects though because a lot of them do stuff that I don’t and it was hard to translate them into comments on their posts. Eventually I just started writing more sentences in Spanish to get the sentence structure right and then I commented on 3 of my classmates schedule with ease. I exceled in doing in person group work because I could work with them in real time and it was easier to do our work. I learned how to have a conversation with someone about our schedules and ask questions about it. The thing I would do differently would probably try to com up with more complex comments for some of my comments.
Document7Presentational Speaking
I did two presentations for Spanish 101, one about my university and the other a interview of my friend Jackie. The university project involves me showcasing pictures of the buildings and describing them.
The most difficult part of the University project was figuring how to describe how far apart the buildings were. I tried rearranging the sentences until it made sense and eventually I understood how write how far the gym is from the library. I excelled at describing what I do in the places I mentioned in the video like exercising with my friends in the gym. I learned how to interview a fellow student in Spanish about their personality, major, and classes they are taking. The only thing I would do differently is I would have just walked around on campus and described them in person instead of making a slideshow.
Presentational Writing
For my 3rd project I had to write out my weekly schedule and provide questions about it. It wasn’t too difficult because the 1st project was a self-written description about me and my personality.
The hardest part for my 3rd project was trying to create the questions. The question words were always difficult for me to memorize so I would confuse a lot of them with each other. I studied them every other 15 minutes for 3 hours a day and by day 2 I could stop cause I had it down. The easiest part was probably writing the days of the week out. In my opinion I think I excelled at spelling because I carefully read all my writing to ensure it looks right and makes sense. I think I could have written better questions. Some of them were kind of basic and I know how to write more advanced ones now.
Document6Interpretive Listening
In English, give a very brief 2-3-line description of interpretive listening activities you completed this semester for or related to your Spanish learning. (See Modes of Communication link for description and examples).
During this semester I had listen to several students’ presentations and give feedback on them. One of them was an interview with a friend for my Spanish 101 class. As well as listening to some videos of native speakers interviewing their classmates.
Then, write a short reflection paragraph that includes the different things you listened to/heard this semester inside and outside of class or in the Language Learning Center or its website. Find a recording and add to this section; be sure to cite it. What was unclear or challenging for you? How did you overcome this difficulty? What did you find most interesting or compelling? What was your takeaway from the listening experience? How have you grown with each activity?
I listened to spanish music, presentations, and videos of native speakers. The most difficult part of listening to some of the presentations is the speakers sometimes go too fast for me to comprehend what is being said. However I just had to rewatch it and rewind it a couple times to start to understand them. The most interesting thing to me was how different each interview was like some were more formal while others were very casual. My takeaway would be if it gets too difficult to understand at some points just relisten, ask questions, and try to use context clues to figure out what the speaker is saying. I definitely have grown because in the beginning I could only understand the greetings and the goodbyes. Now I can listen to an entire conversation and be able to understand both sides with out being confused on what is being said.
Document5Interpretive Reading
In class we learned about the different social medias Latin America and other Latin countries use. I read some articles on the subject of social media use in Latin countries during the pandemic titled Social Media and the Pandemic: Consumption Habits of the Spanish Population before and during the COVID-19 Lockdown. (Gudiño, D., Fernández-Sánchez, M. J., Becerra-Traver, M. T., & Sánchez, S. (2022). Social Media and the Pandemic: Consumption Habits of the Spanish Population before and during the COVID-19 Lockdown. Sustainability, 14(9), 5490. MDPI AG. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su14095490)
The most challenging part of reading in class was trying to understand some of the verbs used because I hadn’t learned that many at the time. I just kept rereading and gaining context clues from other sentences to try to understand the readings in class. The most interesting part was that Whatsapp was their most popular used social media app which is basically another version of a texting app. I learned that even though many people have access to the same apps that we do, those who use it in Latin America don’t use them the exact same way we do. A lot of their social media is just chatting with family or promoting their businesses.