SPAN 201

Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Instructions

Exploring Culture

Using Lingrolearning.com helped me gain understanding of different cultural perspectives. In each unit there is a culture section with stories from many different people.

Through these stories I was able to understand values from different Spanish speaking countries as well as relate them to my own. My own values varied differently from the Spanish speaking world in many ways, but I was also able to see some similarities. For example, in Unit 12 the culture section spoke about environmental problems faced by many different Spanish speaking countries, many people told their stories about their own countries, but I have never looked into my own countries environmental problems.

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in your community is very important. This can lead to make many friends as well as helping people who may need it. It is important to look out for everyone in your community who may need help.

While I do not participate as much as I should in my community, I am providing for my community by working at a daycare. Many parents struggle to find reliable people to take care of children while at work, so by working at a daycare I am able help them.

Interpersonal Communication

This semester I completed two TalkAbroads. TalkAbroad is a website that allows you to speak to native spanish speakers that live in spanish speaking countries.

When completing my talk abroad I noticed a change in how comfortable I was speaking in Spanish. During my first conversation I was nervous to speak to even my classmates, but knowing that a native speaker was able to understand me during the conversation I was able to become more comfortable with speaking it in the classroom.

It was difficult to meet someone new and have a conversation with someone I had never talked to before. As we got to know each other, it was a little easier to open up and speak to my partner without being so nervous. I learned many things about my partner and her life in a Spanish country.

Presentational Speaking

I created a project about Costa Rica that spoke about what activities to do there, what kind of animal populations live their, and what environmental problems occur.

When speaking about Costa Rica, it was a little difficult because I have never been there before, but I had to speak as though I had. In the beginning I struggled to think of information I could talk about in order to make my video longer than 1 minute. Doing thurough research helped me in learning more about Costa Rica and helped me learn about different environmental problems that have occurred there.

Presentational Writing

During the semester for a project I wrote about a girl who struggles with immigrating to the US from her home country.

Through this project I was able to learn more about immigration and the effects it has on people moving to a new country. It was very interesting to see the perspective of someone who immigrated and have the opportunity to write about it. It was a little difficult to write about someones struggle when I have not went through that struggle myself, but as I learned about other peoples stories in the unit, it was easier to write about.

Interpretive Listening

While in class, the professor spoke mainly in spanish. I would count this as an activity mainly because every day I was given the task of interpretive listening. There were also some videos that we needed to listen to for our units.

During class, directions would often be said in Spanish. This means that I would have to listen very closely to directions. It was difficult because sometimes I was too afraid to ask for the professor to repeat, but my classmates were their to help me understand what was being said. During Unit 14, we had to listen to a video that was fully in Spanish that touched on art and art galleries in a spanish speaking country. It was a bit difficult to understand and take in fully what the video was talking about, but after listening to the video multiple times and using the worksheets to assist me, I was able to understand.

Interpretive Reading

This semester we read a story that was a reinterpretation of the past. The story was about a man who discovered indigenous people and the story had a lot of irony in it.

It was a bit challenging to understand the definition of reinterpreting history. Reading the story and completing the activities helped me grasp an understanding of what interpretation of history is and why it is important to learn about. I was very surprised with how much I enjoyed reading the story. Although it was in spanish, it was easy to understand and comprehend.