Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Instructions

Exploring Culture

I am in what is probably a very unique position compared to most while taking this class. I currently live in Yuma, AZ. For anyone that has no idea where that is, it is about 2 hours from San Diego and 3 hours from Phoenix… and roughly 15 miles from the US-Mexico border. Most of my coworkers have significant ties to the region. I would say a majority speak Spanish fluently and a large plurality spoke it as their first language. A lot of my friends have not just ties to the region, but ties across the border with friends, family, or partners that are from or still live in Mexico. This gives me the opportunity to actually explore the culture of a Spanish speaking country without having to spend thousands of dollars to travel or spend a semester abroad. None of this was by design.

Even with living so close to the border and interacting with so many native speakers, I spoke exactly zero Spanish at the beginning of the semester. Like many, I took two years of Spanish in high school. Also like many, I went about ten years without doing more than counting to ten and promptly forgot every bit of Spanish I ever learned (except counting to ten). Taking this Spanish class, I was able to interact with some of the people around me in a different way. When speaking Spanish to someone that grew up speaking it, you notice the shift in dynamic. I will not lie – I am still not good at Spanish – but, native speakers seem to light up when the guy with the southern accent at least makes an effort. There were obviously challenges… I can circle back to the whole “I am still not good at Spanish” statement, but it is a start. It has given me a new appreciation of language as more than text, but also a medium of a culture.

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in your community is important because it creates a more personal bond with those around you. It allows you to give back when you are doing well, and to be lifted up when you are not.

The Navy has a pretty positive record on giving back to their local communities and my command is no different. We regularly make time for volunteer throughout the community, particularly at the local food bank. Taking this class added an extra depth to that time in the community. Most locals speak Spanish and when they hear you are taking a Spanish class they are going to “give” (read: it won’t be a choice) you the chance to practice with them.

Interpersonal Communication

As I mentioned above, I spoke to a LOT of native speakers by virtue of where I live and who I interact with regularly. One of the physicians I work with also spent the past 8 years in Spain, and will take any excuse to show off his Spanish… which means he spoke to me almost exclusively in Spanish throughout this semester. On the flip side, I do not think I had much written interpersonal communication in Spanish this semester. Yes, the discussion boards existed, but those felt more presentational to me to be completely honest.

As discussed, speaking to native speakers was really eye opening. It allowed me to experience a different culture with less of a “gap” if that makes sense. That might not be the best way to explain it but it felt like a bit of a wall was down when communicating in Spanish, even my very broken Spanish. Conversationally, I still end up injecting a lot of English into my Spanish, but it is steadily improving. Here’s to continuing to improving in this regard through Spanish 102.

Presentational Speaking

This semester, we utilized a tool called Flipgrid. It is a site that allows for video discussions and responses to those video posts.

I will be honest, I was not a fan of Flipgrid initially. I spent well over an hour trying to figure out how to have background audio from another video play in my video so a conversation assignment would have both sides of the conversation playing. Eventually, I gave up and just recorded it for my side of the conversation. Looking back, I am still not a huge fan of Flipgrid. There are some recording features either missing or that I couldn’t find that I wish were available. That said, I think it adds a bit more depth than the traditional text based discussion boards (which were also present… spoilers for the next section) and I understand its inclusion for the class. It was also nice to be able to hear everyone else in the class at various stages of progress throughout the semester.

Presentational Writing

The entirety of our presentational writing in this class was through the class discussion boards. While these could be considered interpersonal communications, I view them closer to presentational because I never replied to a reply on my own post.

These were a nice opportunity to both write in Spanish and to write in English to flesh out our learning path a bit more. Over the course of the semester these became something to look forward to as a relaxed assignment and to read some of what my classmates had written. Below is what I wrote for our final discussion on “Our favorite person”:

“Mi persona favorita es mi mejor amigo. Él es leal. Mi amigo es honesto.

My best friend is my favorite person. Without going into too much detail, he was there when I needed someone most. Got me into the gym and a healthy lifestyle. He is the definition of a good man. He has an amazing wife, who is also one of my closest friends, and two beautiful children.”

Interpretive Listening

Throughout the semester the interpretive listening activities have grown. They started as alphabet checks, then isolated sentences, and by the end they were fully fledged conversations lasting multiple minutes. These were not always easy.

The longer listening activities were especially difficult. As a non-native speaker, the speed with which fluent Spanish speakers go is, bluntly, a painful experience for a novice. Fortunately, the video players have a speed setting. Turning it down to 0.5x speed was a life saver on some of the exams, particularly the early ones. That said, as I have improved over the semester, I am finding it less and less necessary to slow things down… although, I still do on exams to check myself because that is just due diligence.

(The videos on exams generally short conversations with questions about the conversation. Unfortunately I cannot link these videos because they are part of the exams.)

Interpretive Reading

I think the best example of interpretive reading from this semester were the article questions on exams. These were two-ish paragraph stories with a few questions about the contents of the story. Unfortunately, I cannot link because to review the exam I would have to use the LockDown Browser which does not support copy and paste. It would also probably be unethical to copy and paste exam questions to a public site.

These questions were pretty clear and self explanatory. That did not make them easy, though. The first time I saw one on an exam it was a bit of shellshock. Here is just this wall of text and I was expected to read it after about two weeks of studying Spanish. As the semester went on, it got quite a bit easier. The last one was actually somewhat enjoyable because I was just learning about Lolita Lebron of Puerto Rican history.