Over the semester I have grown tremendously gaining different skills while managing different challenges along the way. In the beginning of the year, I had a background on basic skills I had learned from Spanish 101, however there was still a lot of learning I had to do. Some of the most difficult assignments for me to complete were on Lingrolearning.com due to the difficult vocabulary. Luckily, I was able to overcome this obstacle by studying and going over the vocabulary frequently and constantly practicing. My strengths over the semester included speaking about family members, friends, and food. However, I struggled with speaking about health, activities, and medical field related topics.

Artifacts

A good artifact is a portion or clip of an assignment. It needs to be carefully selected to provide evidence/proof that supports what you are saying in your reflection.

Your reflection will help you determine what that will be. It is a quest for quality. It will represent you academically and professionally, and have personal meaning. It can be written, audio, or video.

At the end, ask yourself if the artifacts best demonstrates your abilities and growth over time.

At the end of your reflection in each section, link or embed the assignment/artifact. If the assignment has multiple pages and seems to overwhelm the section, consider adding just the first page and offering to provide the rest upon request.

Exploring Culture

Different practices that helped me gain an understanding of cultural perspectives are studying vocabulary. I made a notebook that I would write all my gammer and vocabulary into and then I would study each section before each quiz. A product that helped me over the semester was my notebook and Lingrolearning.

These practices and products both helped me better understand the values in hispanic culture by helping me gain the knowledge of the vocabulary. Without understanding basic words and phrases, it would become extremely difficult to know what different items and foods are called. These products and practices challenged my worldview because I was able to learn a lot more about hispanic culture than I had previously known. I was able to learn new concepts and traditions I had not known before.

Engaging in Communities

It is extremely important to engage in your immediate community and the global community for multiple reasons. Engaging in your communities helps form bonds, friendships, and helps you gain knowledge on new information you may have never learned before!

I have participated in different communities by having conversations with people from different countries over the world.

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad and discussion boards have been a great way for me to interact with other classmates and people to gain a better understanding of the material. TalkAbroad especially helped my speaking skills because I was interacting with people from different countries.

With each TalkAbroad conversation and discussion board post I have gained a lot of new skills. By interacting with different people, I was able to gain new knowledge, vocabulary, and new information I had not known before. Speaking with people helps improve my pronunciation and helps me retain new vocab words. I did really well with the discussion board posts, however I could have improved on my TalkAbroad conversations by preparing more ahead of time.

Presentational Speaking 

In the beginning of the year, an assignment we were given was to record ourselves using FlipGrid saying the new vocabulary words we had.

During the semester I have completed an Introduction video, two conversations, two talks with my professor, and 2 two TalkAbroad conversations. I would always get nervous for each of these assignments but I was able to overcome these challenges by studying beforehand and practicing what I was going to say. Luckily I did really well with the TalkAbroad conversations and the conversations with my professors.

 

Presentational Writing

During the semester we had to complete discussion board posts and a lot of them involved watching a video from YouTube on a topic, and then discussing the topic.

Overtime, each discussion board post became easier because I became more comfortable with voicing my opinions on different topics. The format became more understandable and it became fun to discuss new topics with my classmates! In the future I could do better by responding with more words on my classmates posts and possibly doing background research on the topic discussed.

Interpretive Listening

One way we would complete listening activities this year was through LingroLearning. Sometimes the assignment due would include a listening portion that had to be completed for full credit. Another way includes conversations on Flipgrid with the professor.

The listening activities included topics on family members, friends, food, school, health, occupations, etc. Both Flipgrid assignments included topics on family, food, and how to stay healthy. The most challenging part of these assignments were fully understanding what the proctor and professor was saying in Spanish. I usually had to break down each sentence to help better understand what was being said. This was a great learning experience for me because I have learned how to use the vocabulary I have been studying during each module!

Interpretive Reading

During the semester we have completed some interpretive communication activities including different articles and YouTube videos.

Usually reading the articles was not very challenging for me but interpreting the conversations said in certain YouTube videos often were challenging for me. I was able to overcome this difficulty by using my vocabulary notebook to translate what each person said during the videos and during the articles.