Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Practices that have helped me gain a better understanding of other cultures are simply exposing myself to them. As part of the course, we did several assignments that involved learning about different Spanish-speaking cultures and oftentimes discussed them as well.

When you are only surrounded by your own culture and are far away from others it can be difficult to understand other cultures. Throughout the semester I learned just how similar American culture can be to other cultures sometimes. It also helped to put my own culture into perspective. It’s rather easy to lose yourself in the thought that your culture is at the center of the world if you never take the time to learn otherwise and I think I benefitted greatly from an expanded worldview because I spent time learning about Spanish-speaking cultures. This time I believe I learned more so how similar our cultures can be to one another and I don’t think I had to work through any misconceptions or stereotypes as I used to. For example, one assignment involved a discussion board where I and my classmates discussed gender stereotypes as related to careers and found that while careers are gendered differently in Spain (ex. gym teachers are considered feminine there while in the USA gym teachers are typically male) there was an overall similarity in that certain careers were considered feminine or masculine.

Linked below is the video we were asked to watch as part of the above example.

Engaging in Communities

Learning about and engaging in cultures that are not your own is important and allows one to develop a much wider worldview. Culture can be wildly different even in small areas and it can be very fulfilling to know and understand the differences. Linked below is a video showcasing some dishes from different Latin American countries.

Although I have unfortunately never had the chance to try any of the dishes mentioned in the video, it still taught me new things about Latin America including how similar-and different-it is from American culture. Before watching the video, I didn’t know any of the dishes spoken about and I feel it is a testament to just how little I really know about other cultures. If I hadn’t watched this video, I would still be unaware, even though the dishes are wildly famous and popular in their respective countries.

Interpersonal Communication

During this course I participated in around a dozen interpersonal oral/audio activities including two TalkAbroads, ten or so discussion boards, and several more assignments requiring reading and writing. The oral/audio activities were mostly conversations done with a classmate as a partner with two being assessment conversations done by my professor. Below is the audio recorded from the second TalkAbroad I participated in.

Through each assignment and activity, I believe I have become a better Spanish speaker. I am still far from fluent, but I’ve found that even when I can’t find the exact words, I have enough vocabulary and grammar to describe what I am trying to convey as best I can. Each activity had a different topic that forced me to use different and new words and come up with new ways to respond to others. What I found difficult was the need to remember certain vocabulary and grammar in the midst of conversation and I often found myself forgetting things I learned previously. I am still in the middle of overcoming this as it will apply to every new thing I learn until I learn it by heart. However, I excelled at pronunciation and written activities. It came easier to me than other aspects. Overall, I believe this merely proves the amount of focus I need to apply to memorizing words and their uses; if I were to do it differently, I would put more emphasis on making up for my shortcomings.

Presentational Speaking

I completed a few presentational speaking activities, each around three minutes in length. Each assignment had a different topic but are similar in structure and length. The activity below is a video of my assignment where I describe me and my family members.

Due to the similarities of each presentation, they all had similar problems as well. I struggled to remember what I wanted to say and had a hard time coming up with things to say because I couldn’t speak off the top of my head like I can with English. Much practice and familiarizing myself with the relevant words is what helped me the most and it allowed me to speak more naturally than if I merely memorized a speech, even though my speech is still somewhat stiff. It was most difficult to come up with enough to say to fill in three minutes, as it is a surprisingly long amount of time. I believe that only exposure and learning new words will ease this, unfortunately.

Presentational Writing

I have completed several pieces of presentational writing as projects and general assignments, one of which was an informative presentation on influenza that was written exclusively in Spanish. It was completed as a project for the course to showcase our abilities using vocabulary and grammar we had only recently acquired including formal commands.

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Formal commands and medical vocabulary are not usually used in everyday speech, so this project was a good way to get used to them, despite encountering them in things such as infographics and pamphlets. For this assignment, it was difficult for me to reach the required word count for each aspect (such as the minimum required amount of formal commands and reflexive verbs). Going back to my notes and reviewing grammar, verbs, and general vocabulary helped me because it allowed me to remember everything I learned thus far and expanded what I could use regardless of what I remembered at that specific moment. I excelled at writing other than that because to me it is far easier than speech. Next time, it would do me well to memorize new words and grammar better.

Interpretive Listening

LingroLearning provided with much of the material we used in interpretive listening. Often, we listen to an audio and answer questions about what we heard, or we identify which verbs in which forms we heard (ex. reflexive verbs as formal commands). Below is a video we listened to and discussed.

In the video, perhaps the biggest challenge was understanding the speakers as they were speaking fast and with accents which is wholly unlike the kind of Spanish that is recorded for educational purposes. Although I believe it gave me a good experience, it was difficult to listen to, and I listened to it several times over to understand. I found it most interesting how native Spanish speakers speak compared to what you learn in a classroom. It made me realize the importance of hearing normal people speak because of the massive differences between education and real life speech.

Interpretive Reading

Using LingroLearning, we were given several passages to interpret over the semester. The passage below details malnutrition and healthy eating habits. We were asked to find the six preterite forms of verbs that refer to actions completed in the past, and then given a series of multiple choice questions in Spanish asking about details from the passage.

When completing this assignment, although I could understand generally what the above passage means, I was unable to understand some details. It took a few readovers to fully understand. The most challenging part for me was understanding the technical words as there are several we had not learned by that point that were not translated in parenthesis like others were. By using as much surrounding context as I could, I was able to understand much of the passage.

From this assignment, I found it most compelling when I was finally able to understand what I was reading; being able to understand a piece of writing in another language is a wonderful motivator. Much of my takeaway from this reading was a motivation to read more Spanish writing pieces and passages, even if I am still unable to read more complicated texts. My reading ability has gotten much stronger; I can at least get the gist of a piece of writing as long as it is not extremely complex, if not fully understanding it.