Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Throughout the course there were many opportunities to learn about Spanish speaking cultures. The two main ways of doing so involved the LingroLearning “Exploración cultural” and reviewing material for discussion boards.

There were many times where I found myself having to reevaluate misconceptions I had about Spanish countries as well as have some things I knew about the country be put into perspective. For instance, I knew that medical tourism was a common practice and I knew that it took place often in some Spanish speaking countries, but I also had a misconception that some Spanish speaking countries lacked in healthcare practices. By putting medical tourism into perspective I was able to put aside my misconception about poor healthcare. On another note it was nice to see that the family values of Spanish speaking countries are similar to that of my own family. We are a unit that aids each other when needed and we are very close which is similar to many Spanish speaking families.

The following is an investigation for Lingrolearning, module 6, of same-sex marriage in a chosen country:

“According to the article Spain’s LGBT Movement by Kerman Calvo and J. Ignacio Pichardo, same sex marriage in Spain has been legal since 2005. Movements for same sex marriage, however, started in the 1970s. Unfortunately the first movement came to an end when the AIDS epidemic became apparent. In the 1990s is when the movement started again. There is an entire book written about transgenders living in Spain called Living the Opposite Sex Trans Journey in Southern Spain, by Christoph Imhof that researches the trans community of the location listed in the title. It was published just this year, 2023. I am interested in reading it, but for the purpose of this assignment I will just state that it has an entire research completed and discussed over the transgender community. It seems that currently there are heavy debates in the community regarding trans rights, similarly to the United states, but in a harsher judgement. It is more suggestive that the rights of transgenders are low due to transgender being gender dysphoria, a mental illness and the mental illness is what should be treated before physical changes are made.”

Engaging in Communities

Humans are social creatures that need to engage with each other in meaningful ways. By engaging in communities we are able to stimulate ourselves in such a way that we learn from and help each other. In our immediate communities we are able to build close bonds that continue to aid us throughout our lives. In the global community we expand our knowledge and views of humanity as whole and, on occasion, imprint ourselves in history.

I have been able to interact with my immediate community, my fellow students, through online discussion boards and share my opinions with them. I was also able to see people engage globally through Youtube videos and articles as they share their Spanish culture with anyone willing to watch those videos. By viewing these videos and making a conscious effort to learn from them I was able to engage within the global community.

The following is my comment for the module 10 discussion board:

“I think that gender has stereotypes for a reason, for instance, physical capabilities often limit women but aid men, however that’s not to say women who work hard cant fulfill physical labor jobs if they so like. Because of certain limitations, stereotypes in the workforce exist. These stereotypes do not need to exist in the home though. Loving and caring for one another befalls both men and women and it is our duty as humans to protect each other no matter the situation. Un género u otro género no necesita ser dañado debido a los roles de género típicos. No haga preguntas a los niños y los niñas que los separen del otro género. Anime a los niños y los niñas a pensar en todas las opciones de trabajo. By doing this, systemically job stereotypes will break down slowly. 

I think that the USA has so many different cultures now that it is hard to compare the entirety of the US to just Spain. Looking at it from the way I grew up (In a small town and religious family) I would say job stereotypes are very similar. The way children observe who they see more often in a job field is true to how I remember things growing up. Moving to a larger city, however, I have come to realize that there is a battle to get rid of gender stereotypes. For example. I am a Massage Therapist which is predominantly a female occupation. In a small town, everyone seems to accept that. In a large city, I see many men, and women, trying to validate men working in this field. Yet often older generations or people, who were raised in strict households/work gender role jobs, do not care for men to work in Massage Therapy. It was not mentioned, but I am willing to bet, Spain is the same way about Massage Therapy. 

There is so much that can be said regarding gender stereotypes in the workforce, but I think ultimately it comes down to each new generations teaching children to be accepting.”

Interpersonal Communication

I have had a few opportunities to have interpersonal communication. Through TalkAbroad I was able to speak to two native speakers in a spontaneous manner based on a specific subject for fifteen minutes. On another occasion I got to speak with my husbands coworker who is also native to a Spanish speaking country about his work-life and home-life.

In my first TalkAbroad assignment we discussed our family lives. My speaking partner was extremely amiable and easy to speak with. He was also from Nicaragua. We shared many interests and had a similar love towards our families which made for better communication. The next conversation I had was with my husbands coworker. This conversation was more forced upon me through a video chat which caused me to express feelings of nervousness and dislike for the situation, however after a few sentences I was eased. This coworker enjoys helping other learn Spanish and was able to help me through some of the specific dialect he spoke in. He told me about how he enjoys learning different dialects. This ended up helping me a lot when I had my second TalkAbroad.

For the second TalkAbroad, my speaking partner was from Mexico which has a very different dialect from Nicaragua. Because I now had some experience with different dialects I was able to pick up on her speech easier than if I hadn’t known the dialect. However, It was still a difficult conversation. Vocabulary did not come easy to me in this conversation and I needed to pay attention to every word and context clue to figure out what was being discussed. With more practice in vocabulary and conjugations of verbs I think that any future discussions I have will be much easier and I will engage more.

The following is a link to a google drive of my first TalkAbroad recording:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-r66bfvGTci1SqqT2ywvmWYcJrhAT-h8/view?usp=drive_link

Presentational Speaking

There were a few opportunities to verbally present information. A few of these occurred through LingroLearning in which I wrote down what I planned to say before recording. The others occurred one time on a flipgrid introduction and the other in a video for a discussion board post.

I enjoyed being able to record and present information through LingroLearning because I would have time to prepare and present after reviewing vocabulary. It made it so there were few errors in that vocabulary. The Flipgrid introduction would have been more complete if I was able to speak Spanish the whole time but I could only tell my name and major in Spanish. The video for the discussion board was where I was able to present to the class on the topic of health and my own health which I found to be fun. In all of these presentations I was able to show off more of what I had learned throughout the class. What I lack the most in is fluency. I would hold syllables for longer periods of time than necessary instead of speaking word for word. For example, I would say “Teeengo” instead of a short and curt “Tengo.”

The following is a link to a google drive for a presentation recording I did for a discussion board. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Od8NsGTLq4GLhxJXUjgLnrIU2DAGdEGu/view?usp=drive_linkLinks to an external site.

Presentational Writing

All presentational writing done for the course was short and sweet. Discussion Boards and LingroLearning had assignments where I needed to write a couple of sentences in Spanish to cover the topic being learned within the module.

I enjoyed writing a lot because I got to engrave the topic of learning into my mind by speaking out loud what I had written. I also enjoyed practicing where accent marks go and being able to see the flow of words. It was difficult at times though to remember what I wanted to write about and I needed to take time to adjust sentences to the vocabulary I knew at the time of writing. In the future I will continue to use writing as a learning method to help engrave upon my mind what and how I can verbally say something to stay as accurate as possible.

The Following is an example of some presentation writing I completed in module 7 for these questions:

Vocabulario 7-11A ¿Y tú? Write a short paragraph about sports using these questions as a guide.

¿Qué deporte(s) practicas?
¿Con quién practicas ese deporte?
¿Te gusta ver deportes por televisión o prefieres participar activamente?
¿Cómo te sientes cuando practicas deportes? (Me siento nervioso/a…)

“Me gusta nadar y pasear en bicicleta. Practico con me espsos o sola. Prefiero ver la televisión. Me siento motivada cuando juego deportes.”

Interpretive Listening

I took a lot of time to listen to many Spanish speaking videos and recordings throughout the semester. I listened to many Podcasts on Youtube and I listened to all the assigned homework that included recordings. I also listened to stories that were told on apps like Doulingo.

The things I listened to that brought the most value to my learning were the stories from Doulingo and the Podcasts. I found that listening to stories and language being spoken consistently with out interruption of my own responses allowed me the time to process what was being spoken. The most difficult challenge was keeping up with the pace of the podcast speakers. What helped for some of that was interjections by an English speaker who would help narrate the situation happening. I will definitely continue listening to stories and podcasts as I continue my goal of becoming fluent in Spanish.

Interpretive Reading

The most amount of reading I completed was through exams and LingroLearning “Conraseña: Texto”. Because I do not have access to the exams and I do not have the ability to download images of text from Lingrolearning I found an infographic image similar to the “Infografías sobre la salud y el bienestar” in module 9 of Lingrolearning. The following image can be found at https://coronavirus.delaware.gov/graphics/protect-yourself-and-others-infographic-spanish/

Reading in a different language was overwhelming for me. There is so much information and new words mixed in with known vocabulary that sometimes I would find myself forgetting the vocabulary I knew. I needed to make sure I did not get caught up reading information word for word and simply focus on the words I knew along with the context of the situation. By doing this I could better understand what I was reading and also sometimes learn the general meaning of another word.