Before starting Spanish 101, I knew a little bit of the language. I took three Spanish classes between 8th grade and freshman year of high school so it has been about eight years since I studied the language. I could remember how to say my name, ask and answer the question how are you, and I knew some other small phrases. About a year ago I also started using DuoLingo but not consistently. However, it did prove to be very helpful once I started using it more. 

In the class, the parts I had the most trouble with were the verbs that have stem changes such as empezar and querer. I still have a little trouble using verbs like these but writing them down was very helpful. The act of writing them down helped me remember that they change. Here is an example of the stem changing verbs from the Aventuras textbook.

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Exploring Culture

A couple of the practices that helped me gain an understanding of the cultural perspective are sports and greetings. Similar to people who live in the United States, they have sports rivalry between cities. Soccer is huge for people who live in Spain. Then there are greetings which are very different when compared to America. In Spanish speaking countries, they greet others with a kiss on the cheek. However, there are some situations where a hug or handshake is preferred. 

Learning about the cultures practices made me think about my own culture. I found it very interesting how different the two are. This helped me have an appreciation for the Spanish culture. 

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in the community is very important because it allows that community to grow and prosper. It also helps spread kindness. People will see others helping and will encourage them to help as well. Being an art education major, I love helping people. Helping children achieve their goals and watching them grow is so rewarding. It shows that I’m making a difference in the kids lives which in turn helps the community. 

Interpersonal Communication

I did not use TalkAbroad but I did do discussion boards and oral/audio activities. These were very simple activities. For discussion boards, I simply wrote my answers and then communicated with other students about their answers. I did enjoy the oral activities entrevistas with another student. We had to have a conversation in Spanish and I found it to be very helpful.

Out of all of these assignments, I found the entrevistas to be the most helpful. During those assignments is where I really saw how I was doing and the improvement I made in the class. I’ve realized that I can speak it pretty well when I know what the conversation is about but audio is where I still have some trouble. On the audio assignments, I noticed I would replay the recordings over and over trying to figure out what they were saying but I still couldn’t get it. Next time, I will need to practice listening more. 

Presentational Speaking

I completed quite a few speaking assignments. I did four conversations with another person and multiple assignments where I had to record myself answering questions. 

I believe I did pretty well on these assignments. The part I had trouble with the most on these is formulating my answers. Making sure I said every word in the correct order and not forgetting words was challenging. Next time, I need to study sentences more and not just individual words.

Presentational Writing

I didn’t have any presentational writing assignments. The only writing assignments I did were discussion boards and those were not fully taking in Spanish. 

Interpretive Listening

There were multiple assignments where I had to use interpretive listening. This included watching videos of people communicating and listening to some radio/news audios. 

All of the interpretive listening assignments were inside of class. I did and still do, have some trouble understanding what people are saying in recordings and videos. I’ve noticed that I have trouble keeping up so I wind up listening to it multiple times. These assignments were helpful because I know where I need to practice. However, with each activity I do, I understand a little more each time. 

Interpretive Reading

There were many interpretive reading activities in this class. I don’t remember what all of them were but many were letters, brochures, or descriptions/conversations. 

The interpretive reading was definitely less challenging for me than the interpretive listening. Being able to physically see the words is easier for me to figure out and decipher. I of course found a few challenges here and there when I couldn’t remember what a word was but other than that I didn’t have too much trouble with it.