Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Throughout my time of Spanish 102, we explored many different parts of Spanish Culture. I explored these through the LingroHub website. I did many readings on different people from Spanish speaking countries. I then did activities based on these readings, mainly answering questions about what I learned. TalkAbroad was another way I was able to explore culture. I spoke to two fluent Spanish speakers from Paraguay.

When on LingroHub, I was introduced to how many different Spanish Countries do things. This gave me the chance to compare their customs to mine in America. I learned about many challenges they face, cultural values, traditions, families, and even some laws surrounding sexual orientation. During my TalkAbroad conversation, I spoke to a woman named Adrianna and I learned about her family and things she likes to do in her area of Paraguay. This gave me a chance to really think about the differences between things that my family enjoys doing compared to hers. I learned that many families in Paraguay are large, where as here, there’s typically parents who only have 1-3 children.

Engaging in Communities

The importance in engaging in my community is that I’m able to learn more about others thoughts and back grounds. Communicating with communities is important because you’re able to meet so many wonderful people and share your stories with them.

I engaged with the Odu community by doing discussion boards and commenting on peoples posts and learning more about them. We also did a group activity communicating with each other through zoom.

Interpersonal Communication

When using talk abroad, I was able to establish good unplanned interpersonal communication. I talked with a woman named Adrianna, we spoke about family, activities we like, different things we do to stay healthy, and what types of food we like. Discussion boards were useful in a sense that I was able to respond to fellow classmates about their certain beliefs.

At first, when I was using talk abroad, I was very nervous. I struggle with spontaneous speaking sometimes even in English. I am very introverted so talking with someone new was a little nerve wracking. When we talked for the first time it was difficult for me to get my words out at the start, but she really helped me feel comfortable with talking in Spanish. She made things easier to understand with hand signals and explaining things in different ways that was easier to understand. During our second meeting, I was comfortable talking to her and we engaged in many spontaneous conversations. I actually began to have fun talking to her and I think that’s what made me like Talk Abroad. It was a great learning experience and made me a little more comfortable with having unplanned conversations in Spanish.

Presentational Speaking

We did a few presentational speaking projects, all of which were fun to create. We spoke about our families and what food we like to make.

My first presentation was about my family. It was very easy to speak about my family and very fun. I enjoy talking about family and things we like to do together. I struggled a little at first because this was my first recorded spanish project that I did, but I think it was a little easier after a few tries of recording. I stumbled on a few of my words, but with spanish, practice makes perfect. During a presentation where I spoke about a food that I liked to make, I used a step by step process of making Quesadillas. It was a little difficult because there were a few words I didn’t know how to say, but I did my best to improvise with different ways of saying what I was trying to get across. Although I did struggle sometimes, I think my presentational speaking has improved at the end of the semester.

Presentational Writing

We did one presentational infographic promoting good health. I chose to create my infographic on healthy eating. This was very fun and something that I enjoyed making.

When creating my infographic, I was a little confused at first because I’ve never made one before. I used a base of looking at different pictures of health pamphlets. I created a presentational slide consisting of different healthy eating tips. This was a good learning experience for because I enjoy teaching about healthy eating habits and its something that interests me, so being able to explain it in English and now Spanish is a great accomplishment for me.

Interpretive Listening

We watched and listened to at lot of videos containing information about Spanish speaking countries. We learned what sports a majority like, and the different jobs that children want to have in the future.

I learned that soccer is very popular in Spanish speaking countries. A majority of people interviewed liked soccer. I also learned about children in spanish speaking countries affected by career gender stereotypes. Many of the boys interviewed wanted to work in jobs that require manual labor and most of the girls wanted to go into teaching. It was a little hard to translate with out captions so I did usually turn on captions. I find it so interesting the similarities and differences that our country has compared to the Spanish world. I was able to learn and understand different beliefs and popular activities in Spanish speaking countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HKfV9u6ehE

Interpretive Reading

We read a few articles, one of which talks about health care in Spain. We also did many readings about different people from different spanish speaking countries in order to learn more about their culture.

The health care in Spain is free and that was really interesting to me. Our culture and health benefits are very different so its interesting to read about what they have compared to us. They also have many beliefs and customs. Usually women are house keepers and take care of children while men go out and work. There are also beliefs concerning different sexualities, often homosexuals are not accepted and are forced to hide their relationships.