Exploring Culture

In the Discussion Board 6 Assignment I learned more insight into the way that Spanish and Hispanic families are organized and how strongly imbedded in the culture it is. I knew about this growing up but didn’t fully grasp the concept until doing research on it for this discussion board.

Another very enlightening assignment was the TalkAbroad1 assignment I did. I was extremely nervous to speak to a stranger in a foreign language from a foreign country but was very quickly put at ease when I realized that the very sweet woman, I was conversing with was trying to help me and was very patient and knowledgeable. It was difficult to do but a very rewarding experience for sure.

Engaging in Communities

The Discussion Board Assignment 8 was very good for exploring more opportunities through food. Getting a chance to see new foods I wanted to try inspired me to want to go to the source for a new experience and my new Spanish vocabulary will come in handy when that time does come.

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad was very intimidating at first, but I was quickly made comfortable by my partner for the conversation, and I felt that they were well equipped to help me whenever I started stumbling on my words. Discussion Boards were a good opportunity to get exposure to other cultures and experiences.

I felt that the TalkAbroad and in person zoom meeting conversations with the professor were beneficial because it provided a great opportunity for a fluent speaker to correct any issues I was having or answer questions in real time. I did not feel that the Flip Grid assignments were a good use of my time. While it did help with auditory comprehension, I often found myself frustrated, confused and at a loss for what was being asked or said. This made it difficult to come up with appropriate responses for my submissions. I also didn’t feel that the amount of time I was investing in the individual assignments for the Flip Grid were worth the points I earned.

Presentational Speaking

I submitted a Flip Grid video respond for an assignment that had my professor reading a pre-drafted script, leaving time between statements and questions for me to respond, and I provided responses to the questions and statements asked.

I personally did not think that these particular assignments were a good resource. I struggled with understanding what some of the words being said were and often found myself stuck and frustrated. To overcome this, I sometimes had to refer to my classmate’s response videos to know what was being said in order to provide a decent response. I often ended up spending too long on these assignments and didn’t feel like the work was worth the points for it.

Interpretive Listening

In this Lingro Learning assignment I listened to a passage in Spanish and answered questions about what I thought this assignment could be about.

These types of assignments were very beneficial in my opinion, particularly because the speaker was always very clear and easy to hear and very rarely did, I come across words I couldn’t at least identify or sound out enough to spell it out. The questions asked also didn’t require me to know every word of the passage as well and this helped me to not dwell on the words I didn’t know. Hanging up on a word or phrase I don’t know often prevents me from being able to keep going with the rest of the passage but that wasn’t necessary on Lingro.

Interpretive Reading

I did not utilize outside sources for this course in terms of interpretive literacy.