Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Instructions

Exploring Culture

There were a variety of cultural products and practices that we went over this semester. Some of these included such things as same sex marriage, preferred foods and beverages, and preferred job types.

I learned a lot in regard to same sex marriage in some different cultures. One of the main ones I researched was Spain. I discovered that same sex marriage and other LGBTQ situations were very different from what I had previously thought. For example, Spain is considered one of the most open countries for the LGBTQ communities with many laws and such promoting their accessibility and allowing them the freedom to be themselves. I thought that this was really cool to learn of and I just wished more of the world was so open about such topics.

Engaging in Communities

In English, give a brief description of the value of, and importance of, engaging in your immediate community and the global community.

It is very important to interact with the community around you for a variety of reasons. One of the least considered reasons is that it is good for your mental health because human are very social beings. Primarily though it is important to interact with your local and global community because it is necessary to be a functioning and active member of society in order to bring positive benefits to that society. It can also be beneficial to your personal life such as your career opportunities or even as rewards for your successes.

This image is the image of the Tau Sigma honor society for transfer students. This semester I was able to finish joining and becoming a part of this community. This community is focused heavily on helping transfer students adapt to university life and promote the success of those students whether that is for their education or their ability to interact and become a part of the university communities and have a successful and enjoyable university life.

Interpersonal Communication

The TalkAbroad assignment is all about communicating with a Spanish speaker from some other country through an online video chat. It is meant to be an evaluation and practice assignment for all we have learned in Spanish up to this that moment in the class. For this assignment there are two instances where we had to do this. We also go over some interpretive reading or listening where we seek to understand what we are reading or listening to so that we can answer questions about it in a connected quiz.

The TalkAbroad assignments were very interesting to do. They really helped me come to an understanding of what it was I was lacking in my language abilities at the time of doing them. This helped me be able to analyze how I could fix the problem and improved my language skills further. The assignments were separated into one about family and the other about health and food. Many times, throughout class we also do readings and videos to watch and read them in order to developed better Spanish reading and listening skills alongside being able to speak. When I was doing the reading and listening assignments I usually did pretty well at them. On the other hand, I had a lot more trouble with the TalkAbroad because I find it hard to remember a lot of the grammar and words we had gone over when I was doing those assignments.

Presentational Speaking

Some of the presentational assignments I have done this semester have been things like talking about our family in depth or describing and talking about how to make our favorite dish. These assignments have both been done as videos outside of class that we record and them upload to out online textbook.

I did pretty well on these types of assignments mainly because it is far easier to do an assignment that does not require me to think of what I am saying on the spot. These assignments were very good at practicing grammar and composing longer topics in Spanish and not very good at practicing on the fly speaking. This video is one of these assignments where the goal was to talk of and describe our families. I enjoyed doing this assignment because it was nice to be able to learn how to talk of my family in Spanish. This assignment really helped me to get a grip on the ways to talk of my family and what grammar to use when doing so. It helped me to become more confident in speaking of my family in Spanish unlike some of the other assignments that did not have this format.

Presentational Writing

During this semester of learning Spanish, we did multiple different forms of compositions with different topics. Some of those were making pamphlets about certain topics. For example, making a pamphlet about a school sports club or talking about illnesses and how to prevent them.

The topic on the sports club was very helpful in learning how to write and talk about activities like sports or learning to tell or command someone to do something. It was great in building the knowledge I needed when talking about topics about how to maintain good health later on in the course. The picture above is the assignment I did on a chosen health issue and the best ways to avoid or treat it. In this case I chose allergies as the topic. This helped me get better with talking about health topics and understanding when others are and what they would be saying in those cases. This also really helped me to improve on writing in Spanish although I still have much room to improve.

Interpretive Listening

In English, give a very brief 2-3-line description of interpretive listening activities you completed this semester for or related to your Spanish learning. (See Modes of Communication link for description and examples).

We did a variety of different interpretive listening assignments this semester. Most of them were assignments where we listened to a conversation and then answered questions about what was being discussed in them. Some of them were the type where we answered as if we were talking with the individual talking by recording our responses.

One of the most memorable of these types of assignments was one during the unit where we went over food. In this unit we did a listening assignment in class where we watched a video about a food company and how they prepared ingredients and sent them to their customers with a recipe to make it into food. We learned that it was for the purpose of promoting healthy eating habits. The purpose of this assignment was to practice our listening abilities on Spanish and develop enough familiarity with the material for our project later where we made a pamphlet with a similar purpose built around our favorite foods that we know how to make. I think this was very enjoyable and definitely made it easier to understand similar topics later with this experience and also helped a lot with the project on the subject.

Interpretive Reading

In English, give a very brief 2-3 line description of interpretive communication activities you read in and out of class this semester, such as articles, stories, websites like the Language Learning Center, etc. that you completed for or related to your Spanish learning. Include a copy of one of these activities; remember to cite it. (See Modes of Communication link for description and examples).

Throughout the semester we did a variety of interpretive listening assignments. This was most common with the culture assignments where we read about people from different cultures and their different experiences and views on those cultures. We also did a few other assigned readings for the purpose of getting better at reading Spanish and understanding the material.

The culture assignments were great at improving my ability to read Spanish and develop an understanding of what is being said even when I don’t always understand some of the words being used. It was also great for learning more about the different Hispanic cultures. The assigned reading above was an optional reading for the purpose of helping develop an understanding and greater familiarity with the health topics for our unit and the project on the subject. This reading provides a great example of the correct ways to write about the subject and how we could frame our projects later. It was a great help in developing a clearer ability to understand these types of subjects in Spanish through developing experience with it.