Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Spanish II has been an ultimate challenge for me. It has been harder than Spanish I and it has taken me more time to grasp concepts. Holding conversations has to be the biggest challenge for me. I understand the questions and things being said to me, but conjugating messes me up on so many levels. I have not completely overcome all of my obstacles but having conversations in the mirror and recording myself talk has definitely helped. When I can see myself talking and how I begin to form things it helps me to notice my mistakes and areas that I need to work harder on. I have learned how to describe how I’m feeling, what I like to do, what my morning routines are, what foods I like to eat and much more. Over the course of this class, I was able to form complete sentences and understand what people who speak Spanish are saying without having to use a translator. Again, I can not have a full on conversation with them quite yet but that will come over time.

Artifacts

Instructions

Exploring Culture

I understand that every Spanish speaking country doesn’t have the same cultures or values. Every country is different and they make their own traditions. I also learned that each country is different from the U.S in good as well as bad ways. Spanish speaking countries outweigh us here in the U.S in particular ways and take care of their people in more ways than our Congress and Officials do here in the U.S. The stereotypes that are given to Spanish speaking countries are all wrong and when you actually take the time to read up on the facts and learn each country and it’s people for yourself then you understand and see the bias and misconception that is there. You will see for yourself, just like I did that there is so much more than what actually meets the public eye.

Engaging in Communities

It is important to engage with your community so that you can one continue to grow and two receive all the experiences that you possibly can. Life is full of experience and is a never ending learning process. Being apart of your community and making sure that your community knows who you are will always be something to be proud of and something that will not only help your community but you as well. You can learn as much fro your community as they can learn from you. It’s not only a good deed, it’s an even exchange when you think about it. Helping your community helps you and the generations to come. You can help to change generational curses and much more one day and one event at a time.

Interpersonal Communication

This semester I completed 2 TalkAbroad conversations and they were troubling for me. I get very nervous when having to talk to someone in Spanish, especially when I know it’s for a grade. Also, there were module conversations that we had on FlipGrid. I believe I did better on those conversations because I felt as if I was talking to myself and I imagined that no one was watching. These oral activities helped so that I could understand how to say words correctly without stumbling on them as much. They helped me to hear and see myself. I get to see my facial expressions and my mouth movements and learn what to continue to do and what I truly needed to work on. I also did a Spanish writing assignment with my grandmother this semester. I am much better at writing that speaking Spanish. That particular assignment pushed me to want to progress more and work on my weakness so I could turn them into strengths. It made me think if I could speak Spanish as well as I could write it that I could be a incredible and cunning asset to my future team.

By doing these assignments I was able to grow as a person learning to speak Spanish. It gave me the ability see my flaws when I’m speaking and even when I’m writing paragraphs. Ir wasn’t planned for me to gain all the knowledge that I did by partaking in these assignments and I didn’t think they would help much at first, but indeed they did. They helped me to grow as an individual. The discussion board post helped to broaden my horizon when it came to topics that could be talked about in Spanish and helped me to learn more activities and more in depth words. The TalkAbroad conversations helped me to be able to talk more freely and learn things about people form different countries at the same time. I enjoyed every experience that I had in this class and can’t wait to take what I learned with my into the real world. It was difficult to keep up with everything at times and to actually understand what I needed to do to pronounce words correctly and how to correctly conjugate things. To overcome those difficulties I made color coded calendars and color coded notes. The color coded notes helped me to distinguish and separate what needed to be said certain ways and what conjugation needed to be used in what instances.

Interpretive Reading

In several of the articles that we had to read this semester and I learned a lot. It helped me to understand the Spanish speaking community on levels that I never thought I would want to or need to understand them on. It helped me with the fluency of reading and speaking it all. The articles gave me a lot to take in as well as a lot for me to put out. I was able to put myself in the shoes of some of the people that I read about. Reading the articles that we were required to read made me look at other articles on my own. The articles that I read on my own inspired me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined. The articles were so in depth and made me want to learn more with each word that I read. Then articles also helped me with the speaking aspects of this class. The more I read the more I understood and the easier it was for me to make the connection between reading, seeing and speaking Spanish.