Exploring Culture
Hay una gran diferencia entre la comida latinoamericana y la de los Estados Unidos de América.
I found the module on food and dishes from other counties to be very informative and was reinforced during my TalkAbroad with Miral. It was strange to see how the United States has little cultural identity like many of the Latin America countries had.
The United States cuisine uses a lot of diary products like butter, cream cheese and milk which provides a creamy base to most foods. While we both use meat and vegetables, Latin American countries seemed to strike a better balance with it then the United States. Additionally, there seemed to be more use of fresh ingredients that here are packages and fast food opportunities have replaced that as the primary means. During the review of the national foods of many of Latin American countries there was a similar pattern of the use of fresh fruits and vegetables, like peppers, onions , potatoes, and bananas along with the meat.
During my conversation with Miral, we ate much the same staples, but I did find it interesting that her family did not eat rice much at all. She also stated she cook most of meals and they rarely went out to eat which is completely different to how most people now eat dinner in the United States.
Engaging in Communities
Mantenerse saludable es importante para todos!
It is important to engage in your immediate community as well as global community. Being part of a community and learning about it, you can gain a larger understanding of a community’s needs and aspirations and seeing diverse perspectives can empower strong decision making. Additionally, being part of community engagement increases transparency and provides a sense of ownership. During this semester, I felt like a community that was on the same journey to learn more about Latin American countries and how they are different as much as they are similiar.
Learning about the Spanish healthcare system and the stark comparison it is the United States was alarming and created a very engaging discussion board. Most of our Spanish 102 community felt the same way and wanted to see some of the systems in the Spain healthcare system replicated here in the United States. I had the pleasure to work in Scotland flying helicopters for three years where I was on their medical system, which is comparable to the Spanish system and it did have some advantages. I wish I had the vocabulary to speak to my TalkAbroad partners about it. It would have been interesting to see what their experiences are with it. Additionally, speaking to both partners about their families made me see, while mine was much smaller in size, we really valued them the same.
Interpersonal Communication
Me pongo nervioso hablando en español!
This is the module of the class I still feel like I really need to work on. When I get nervous, I tend to start to speak faster and it takes some effort to get back into a slower conversational pace. This is even more exacerbated while speaking in Spanish to partners. To help with this, I would create some talking points to help me with my flow of information, but that felt very prepared and then I encountered difficulty being more spontaneous.
For both of my TalkAbroad I tried to be more spontaneous with information and I felt like I struggled more with the conversation, but they felt more real. Yanina, my first partnered asked most of the questions, which allowed me to get into a groove with the flow of the conversation. There were a few times that I had to ask for the question again, but this allowed for some serious growth in my ability to process the information being received. Miral, my second partner was a bit more passive, and I found myself having to help the conversation along. Once we had completed or conversation about food and how we stay healthy, I asked questions about regional food and how large her family was. Both of these conversations really allowed me to grow and I felt very accomplished with how they turned out. I am seriously thinking about continuing to speak to people from other countries as it was a very enjoyable experience.
Presentational Speaking
Hablar español ha sido bueno!
This part of the course I felt the most comfortable with as I am quite accomplished in this setting from my employment. This semester we complete presentation ranging from our family to some of our favorite dishes, I really enjoyed the one about our families. While both of my parents have passed on, it was great writing and discussing about who they were. While I didn’t have the vocabulary at the time, my father was a business man and my mother was a school teacher. I found the dinner explanation and recipe project to by challenging as it was difficult to put into words directions. I wrote it out multiple times and practice that night putting the meal together. Anyways, the salmon was delicious!
Presentational Writing
I don’t feel like we got as much of the presentational writing this semester as we did last semester, though all of the projects did seem to overlap presentational writing and speaking. The one module we completed presentational writing was the infographic for good health. This was challenging because now we were getting into directing people to have motivation to workout or eat healthy and the verbs were beginning to have many different rules for the usage. This took some trial and error to ensure they were being use correct. I found myself having to go back into the textbook for examples.
Woulfe-Proyetco-9Interpretive Listening and Reading
Interpretative listening was one of the most difficult items that I must get better at. I still find that it takes a long time for me to process the questions being asked. While I understand more words, the process from Spanish to English and then back again takes too long and I begin to feel uncomfortable and begin to panic. I tried watching programming with Spanish speaking and that helped. I also continued to complete Peleton programming in Spanish. I mainly do yoga and bicycling as the commands are direct and I can focus on the wording patterns later.
Interpretive Reading I am somewhat better at and have improved over the semester. I find that I can get over two thirds of most writing pattern and normally can fill the rest in to get the required meaning of the sentence. I feel this will continue to improve as I hope to remain reading some news articles in Spanish to maintain proficiency.