Exploring Culture

This class was definitly not on my agenda of classes I wanted to take. Originally, I wanted to take French, but I was too lazy to take the placement test for French 102. This class was definitely last minute, but it was definitely worth it. Why not be fluent in Spanish as well, when I can already speak English, Arabic, and some French.

Most of the Spanish course, we used Lingrohub to do homework, classwork, projects, and more. We got to see how Spanish speaking countries were different then America. We learned about what part social media played in Latin countries and what I found out was they used mostly Facebook and Whatsapp to communicate with friends and family, which is similar to what people in Morocco use. In my life, I never really stereotyped Spanish speakers or Spanish speaking counties because everyone is entitled to do as they please when they please. Also “siestas” was quite different for me. I found out that it’s a nap for 30 minutes at 12 p.m. This was strange to me because when I take a nap, it usually lasts hours instead of half an hour. It is quite unique to understand why it’s done.

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in your community is extremely important for me. It allows you to get to know other people and learn their different cultures. Even though I say it’s important to engage in your community, I don’t. Why, you may ask. Well, I am a quiet person (but outgoing if you know what I mean). I stay to myself and only go out with people that I have relationships with. EVEN THOUGH I do this, doesn’t mean YOU SHOULD!

Interpersonal Communication

In our Spanish 101 class we engaged in many discussions with our classmates and our professor. Many assignments that we participated in this class was discussions about what we do on a day to day basis, who were are, what our class schedule consists of, and more. These discussions had to happen in order for us to see where our strengths are and where our weaknesses are. They allowed to us to better ourselves in Spanish even if it wasn’t something big. All in all, these discussions helped shape us into being better Spanish speakers, even if some of us still struggle.

Presentational Speaking

Most of our presentational speaking consisted or Proyectos and Orals with our professor. 2 of these Proyectors were us talking to another peer, while the other one was just us discussing what we liked to do on campus or just in our day to day life. The orals on the other hand weren’t hard, but they required studying if you didn’t really know your vocabulary or what we were learning in class. I definitely was proud of the way I did in orals with my professor because I always got a 90% or above. Even though these orals made me nervous, I was always ecstatic after them because I didn’t expect myself to have even memorized all of the items for the oral.

Presentational Writing

Each assignment we did in Spanish was on Lingrohub. All classwork and homework required us to answer the question that was provided to us in Spanish. That may seem like a lot and it definitely was, but it allowed us to be better and used to writing in Spanish. Most of the writing we did was in our projects when we would have to write 75-100 words ansswering the prompt that was given to us. I believe I exceled at the writing part because it gave me time to study the vocabulary in order to do well on the project. The thing I struggled on sometimes was the accents and conjugation of verbs. Overall, these assignments allowed to me to be better at writing.

Interpretive Listening

Interpretive listening didn’t only consist of what we were doing in Lingrohub. It also consisted of us listening to the professor telling us what we were going to do in class that day in Spanish. Sometimes I would sit there and look lost only because I was never big on Spanish, but when she would tell us what were going to do, I mostly understood what she was saying. Also activities in Lingrohub that would just tell us a word and we would have to spell it would sometimes be difficult for me, only because sometimes it would sound like a letter, but it would be a different letter for me (like h and j). Listening activities always came in handy when I needed to learn how to pronounce something.

Interpretive Reading

All we did was read text in Spanish 101. Whether that was reading something in English and understanding it or reading something in Spanish and being lost. This class was all reading on Lingrohub, due to the fact we had to read instructions whenever we did our classwork or homework. Spanish 101 was definitely a lot of work, but we all got through it with reading, writing, listening, and speaking.