Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
We explored the Spanish culture in this course both through our discussion boards as well as several assignments in LingroLearning. I think it is important to understand the culture of others as it helps bring us all together as one. Prior to this class I have had the benefit of traveling to many other countries including a couple different areas in Spain, while I was in the military. I think learning the culture adds a lot to learning the language.
Reflection
The activity that I have included on this page is a discussion board activity. We were asked to watch a video that described 12 different celebrations that occur in Spain and pick out our favorite as well as to describe a family tradition that we celebrate every year. I was fascinated by all of the celebrations that were described in the video, because many I had not heard of before. I also got to see examples of celebrations in cities in Spain that I have visited before, which I found very interesting. Overall I think that getting a taste of the culture while learning a language is very beneficial and can help someone understand why things are said the way that they are.
Artifact:
Engaging in Communities
While there is a Spanish speaking community around me, I did not go out and engage them specifically for this class. For this topic, I have chosen as an artifact a discussion board where we discussed the differences between Old Dominion University and the Universidad de Grenada.
Reflection
I think that being engaged in the community is important and that understanding even a little bit of Spanish can help, because in a lot of parts of the United States there exists a portion of the community that is Spanish speaking. I grew up in Florida where there is a large portion of the population that speaks Spanish and I currently live on the Eastern Shore of Virginia where there are quite a few people from the Dominican Republic where Spanish is the official language. I think that understanding Spanish helps you greatly in interacting with parts of our communities. The discussion board itself is not an interaction with these communities, but it is an interaction with people that are in the same communities discussing the differences between our local communities and those around UGR.
Artifact:
Interpersonal Communication
One of the activities that we regularly performed in class this semester was posting to FlipGrid. During most of the FlipGrid assignments we were required to have a mock conversation with a pre-recorded clip provided by Profe Donoghue. While these conversations were not unplanned, during the recording we were not able to use notes.
Reflection
I think these mock conversations helped me to get the feel for having an actual conversation in Spanish without having to be fluent enough to have an actual conversation. One challenge was forming an understanding of all of the lines that Profe Donoghue before the recording, because her lines gave us a guide for what our lines needed to be. I did like that we did have some flexibility in creating our lines as it added to the enjoyment of the activity. Overall I think that these assignments did help me become more confident in my ability to converse in Spanish.
Artifact:
Presentational Speaking
There were a few activities in class this semester where we got to practice our presentational speaking on LingroLearning. In the activity that I selected we were presented with a list of words which we had to record ourselves saying. We were then graded on our pronounciation.
Reflection
This assignment was relatively early in the semester, and I did struggle a little bit with a couple of the words. I believe that as the semester continued, I did get better at my pronunciation, but there are still a few words that trip me up from time to time. I think that this assignment helped me to work on my Spanish pronunciation, which is a key part of speaking Spanish.
Artifact:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=2cXm2r5nlvs&list=MLPT
Presentational Writing
There was not a lot of exercises this semester that involved writing full paragraphs. The only time I remember having to do that was on the exams. The assignment that I included was a LingroLearning assignment that required us to take a note written by someone and fill in the blanks with the words that made sense.
Reflection
In this assignment we were required to read the parts of the sentences that had already been written and choose the correct word to use in that situation. Because all of the words to choose from were locations you would find on a campus it was important to fully understand what the sentence was saying. I don’t think this assignment was too difficult, but there were many similar assignments and they helped understand putting together Spanish sentences.
Artifact:
Interpretive Listening
Many of the assignments that we did this semester on LingroLearning involved listening to audio clips and answering questions based on the audio. There were also quizzes that we had where we had to listen to audio and identify what was being said. The assignment I selected was from LingroLearning and involved listening to short audio clips describing an individual’s plans for the week and creating a schedule based off of what we had heard.
Reflection
I thought that this was an interesting assignment, because it was somewhat unique. During this module we were learning the days of the week as well as activities that many of us do. The audio clips including someone saying in Spanish what they planned to do on a certain day and we had to find the activity and drag it to the correct day on the schedule. This assignment required us to be able to hear someone’s plans and then correlate it with the written Spanish text. This assignment helped me to better my ability to listen to Spanish speakers and understand what they are saying.
Artifacts:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lHuXUM6jhoM&list=MLPT
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=dnuAQPnGECc&list=MLPT
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lVQRAsAsHBg&list=MLPT
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=B0_PR-D0OGA&list=MLPT
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=E-CJ_3EJl7w&list=MLPT
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=l8HpAgoWt2c&list=MLPT
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=pjLXJ6i_-ps&list=MLPT
Interpretive Reading
In class this semester there were very many assignments in which we were required to read Spanish text and answer questions based on it. The assignment that I have selected as an artifact included reading an email and answering questions about the context of the email
Reflection
In this assignment we weren’t just asked to read something in Spanish and answer questions that proved we could translate, but we needed to determine the context of the email. This is important, because in Spanish, as well as in English, we say things in different ways in different contexts. We talk to people differently in a professional context than we do with our friends. I think that this assignment was important and helped prove that I understand how to interpret the differences in context when reading Spanish text.
Artifact:
