Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
Some of the best practices that helped me throughout the course was to read out loud. The English language is a language that is fluent for me and learning another language is not as easy for me as it probably would be for others. Most of the time I was trying to prepare for certain assignments because I did not want to keep using short sentences and just simply run out of thing to say all because I am learning how to speak a second language. I also practiced shadowing when doing assignments that involved listening to the other person speak words or sentences or any type of dialogue and would repeat them back to myself. I would keep reviewing again and again to get the main concepts behind assignments, test, quizzes, and oral assignments as well.
These products and practices helped me better understand values and attitudes in the Hispanic culture because it gave me insight on how to properly speak in the Hispanic language. Some words in the Hispanic language have different meanings or even the same meaning and the practices that I did during the semester helped me with making to properly put sentences together to make sure that everything I said was proper and made sense. The challenges that came with these products and practices challenged my worldview by seeing Spanish as being teachable only if you are coachable. Some of the challenges that were faced was that of me not only speaking English fluently, however learning a new language that I never spoke really before. Another challenge with the products and practices I used while learning was that of time management. Being that Spanish is a whole language itself, it was very important to study constantly and to go over and repeat the vocab over and over again which could be time consuming. In all this caused me to work through the stereotypes or misconceptions I had that caused me to view the world from a different perspective because Spanish is one of the most common languages all around, plus it is benefitable to have that knowledge of and the act of speaking Spanish in order to communicate on a day-to-day basis. For example, growing up, my neighborhood was not as diverse as it could have been, but it also enlightened me on other languages, especially the Hispanic language being that I would hear people outside communicating and would want to know what was said.
Engaging in Communities
It is important to engage in your immediate community and the global community because not everyone has the same mindset as you. Not everyone talks like you, does certain things like you or simply do what you do on a daily basis, so it is important to value that factor and turn it into something that be beneficial to everyone. Knowledge is key and being able to have that knowledge about others and their culture is very important to do to keep everyone engaged on learning new things, such as a new language and enlighten those on the different cultures surrounding them
https://www.whitepages.com/blog/lets-get-neighborly-national-night-out-2012__trashed/istock_000002242776small-499×332/
An experience I could reflect on is when the rental office in my neighborhood held a neighborhood cookout when I was very young, but I remember how there were a lot of different people there, including kids of different backgrounds. While me being young and talkative, it was not hard for me to make friends or at least try and it actual went well and I made friends that day that was surrounded by different cultures. Even though not everyone there spoke English, but instead Hispanic I could use this as an example to reflect on being that it was something that I participated at in my community that proved to me why engaging in your community is important.
Interpersonal Communication
Our TalkAbroad activities, which involved two, were for us students to be given the opportunity to speak and communicate with other native speakers. Some other interpersonal oral/audio activities such as listening to dialogue and doing zoom calls with our professor were for us to be given the opportunity to try and communicate familiar topics using the many words and/or phrases that we have practiced and memorized. For the other assignments including discussion boards and other interpersonal writing/reading activities we completed this semester were to prove that we are able to write down sentences and list and being able to memorize phrases on different familiar topics.
With the TalkAbroad assignments and being able to communicate with native speakers helped me grow more confident in speaking to Spanish speakers in general. It gave me more courage to speak in a different language even though they might have not understood me the best. When it comes to the oral/audio and even the discussion boards that we had to complete this semester it, all of it helped me grow into the person that can now say that she feels not 100 percent confident to speak to people in the Spanish language, however at least 75-80 percent confident to communicate. The difficult part of it all was overall learning different words that I know in English in a different language like Spanish. How I overcame this difficulty was me practicing again and again to make sure that things like vocab and phrases are being well pronounced the best way I can. I excelled at writing in Spanish only because I found it easier at even a younger age when I first tried learning Spanish, I was able to do more with writing things down rather than actually saying the words. I learned that speaking, knowing, and writing down things in a different language are all different actions that can be done and accomplished in different ways. Something I would do differently next time would be to start making my own study guides with flashcards to help memorized information.
Presentational Speaking
One of the presentational speaking activities that we completed this semester inside the class was the composition activities. The compositions that we had to do involve one-way communication where were we are being recorded speaking in Spanish a few sentences, while also typing the words on a word document. This would be to help our professor see how we are in forming sentences and not just short ones, also how we pronounce our words at the same time.
Some other presentations that we completed this semester included the compositions but also the Entrevistas with our professor where we had to speak to the professor and answer the questions that she has for us about something that we can visually see like a picture of someone doing their morning routine and answering questions about that. The challenge that I faced when doing any presentational speaking was that when it came to certain words or phrases it was hard for me to pronounce it sometimes and it comes out wrong and makes the sentence sound more complicated than it had to be. I overthink a lot when it comes to pronouncing words in Spanish, especially words with accent marks and and the rolling “r”. I excelled at taking my time in forming and studying the questions and the answers I would give out and also excelled at being able to write more and faster than I can speak the different language. Something that I could do differently would be to continue practicing pronouncing certain words with the rolling “r” or with any accent marks to get better at speaking more.
Credited by: Keonna Wright
Presentational Writing
Some of the presentational writing that we completed this semester involved us doing discussion boards, which involves us answering questions on a picture that the professor put up for us and us responding to the classmates in Spanish. Also, the second half of the composition assignments which involves us typing the sentences that we were also saying in the microphone at the same time.
Credited by: Keonna Wright
Both assignments from the discussion boards and the composition assignments together helped me grow into getting faster and more comfortable and more confident in writing in Spanish. This increases my way of finding different ways to respond to questions or comments and feeling more comfortable in my Spanish writing. The easiest factor within both assignments was just me generally being able to write it out instead of speaking for the whole assignment. The hardest or the more difficult thing for me was forming what actually to say. Being that I also overthink about what to actually say in response. I excelled at being able to write fast and the reason for that would be because I continued to practice writing sentences out before I start an assignment to make sure I make the less mistakes as possible. Something I could do better next time would be to look into more out the box vocabulary that we learned and use that to form more complex sentences.
Interpretive Listening
Some interpretive listening activities that we completed in class were in test, in quizzes, and also Voice Threads. All of which included listening to speeches, monologues, dialogues, and our professor asking us questions to respond too.
The different things I listened to and heard were videos on a group of friends at a beach and how they were using certain words to express emotion, clothes, weather, different foods, actions that people do, daily routines, etc. inside the class.
https://m3a.vhlcentral.com/sections/952235/activities/48732/popup?program_id=112
Credited by: VHL Supersite
Somethings that we’re unclear or challenging for me while listening to this is that I am not that great in understanding what is being said throughout the whole conversation. I can make out key words and try to form sentences to where I can in fact make out what is being said in the dialogue. I overcame this difficulty by being able to study this section again and again until I was able to be more comfortable with the information. The thing I find most interesting about this specific activity would be that it is the only assignment that I was never too confident in. My takeaway from this listening assignment was me being able to form better sentences using these specific words learned in this section. With each activity I’ve grown to become more self-assured when it came to answering different types of questions and be comfortable with creating longer sentences and listening and understanding what is being said.
Interpretive Reading
We read articles and stories in supersite and in quizzes and test. Also we read a few discussion boards in which we had to response to our classmates too.
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As far as what was not clear or challenging for me when it comes to interpretive reading, it would be me trying to put certain words together to make the sentences make sense by using key words from key terms that I already 100 percent know. The factor that I find most interesting or compelling is that sometimes it is easier for me to put key words together to try and put the sentence together and make it to the point that I am able to understand it myself. A takeaway form these activities was that I was able to get more familiar with looking at how sentences are formed and how to read and analyze and understand what is being said that they want you to understand. I’ve grown with each assignment by being able to be able to clearly understand what is being said when I am reading anything that we have learned in Spanish.