Links to discussion videos can be found in “Sample Work” as Youtube links
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The group discussions were something that I was the most nervous about doing for this class, solely because of the fact that they would be done all online instead of face-to-face. I feel as though I am pretty comfortable with my Spanish speaking, but talking about subject matter that is specific to a reading is a little but different. I found myself, as well as my group, having the most trouble trying to go beyond the given questions in our discussions. I think we did a great job overall, and tried our best to make the conversation as fluid as possible, while sticking to the goal of the discussion.
I found my group to be really great at keeping attentive while others were speaking, and piggy-backing on each others responses. I think we also did a good job helping each other if one could not think of a good word in Spanish or if someone was a bit stuck. I learned that my ability to speak Spanish improved over the course of this class, especially since it has been a year since I had taken a Spanish course since being at another school. I think doing these discussions was a good addition to the course, and allowed us to also interact with peers since we could not be in person this semester.
My favorite discussion was about “Una bandera rota y embarrada”, mostly because I felt like we all had something to share and it invoked an interesting conversation, while bringing up some good points about society in general. In this discussion, we talked about social issues not inly in Chile, but compared it to the United States and also the world around us. I think reading this piece, and discussing it with others, brought a new perspective instead of just the perspective I had after reading it myself. I think it was interesting to see what every group member had to say about this, as each of us agreed with each other, but also had some different “take-aways” after reading.
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