Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

In order to gain a better understanding of new cultural perspectives while studying Spanish I looked into many different sources of information. One of the more memorable things I researched was Hispanic art and its history. It interested me how the process to build museums and art galleries was delayed as compared to the US due to the different government systems and developments in history related to them. I also looked into learning how to tell a story in Spanish and read some stories that were published in Spanish. When it comes to storytelling, I found more similarities than differences.

I found that while looking into these topics was interesting it didn’t really change or transform my view of Hispanic culture in any major way. This isn’t really because I didn’t learn something new but more that I as a history major have looked into a lot of different cultures and histories, so I am very open minded and usually don’t form concrete opinions before researching anything extensively. A lot of the things I learned match up to be very similar to a lot of what I knew beforehand. I did find that studying this was a good experience for learning the language and finding new ways to express myself in it.

Engaging in Communities

It is important to engage in your because you are a part of that community, and it is necessary to participate in order to make or maintain things in that community that are beneficial to you or others.

A way that I participate in the community of ODU very often is through my position as an RA. This means that I frequently have to design events and ways for residents of the ODU community, particularly the residence hall I work at, to engage in the wider campus community. Some of the events I have help manage or created range from a Murder Mystery event in Rogers Hall and a Letter to Yourself event where you wrote a letter to your future self as a time capsule. These letters would be handed back in the future during the fall semester. I also frequently participate in the Rogers Hall community as a mediator between residents and act as a figure in the community for those who have troubles or problems they need addressed ranging from room issues, arguments between roommates, facilities needing fixed, or even issues where residents break residence hall and university rules. This role is pretty extensive and can get pretty tiring sometimes. I do enjoy doing it though not only because it is the most involved, I have been in something in a long time but also because it makes paying for the dorms and classes much easier.

Interpersonal Communication

While studying Spanish this semester I did two TalkAbroads with individuals in Spanish speaking countries. In one of them we talked about art and the history of art which was a very enjoyable conversation to have. We worked on learning how to talk about fashion and describe what people and ourselves were wearing. One of my favorite projects was reading a story about a character names Finita’s experiences in the US after immigration and then creating our own story to tell how this story progressed after Finita traveled to Cuba to find her father. It was a very interesting assignment.

In the TalkAbroads I learned a lot in regard to being able to hold a conversation in Spanish and how to talk about topics I am unfamiliar with. It was difficult to word things at times because there was a lot of new or unfamiliar vocabulary and grammar. I overcame this mainly by finding more familiar ways to reword or answer question where I could. When I was doing the assignment for Finita I got to learn how to write a dialogue in Spanish. I found that the main differences were just slightly different ways of punctuating the sentences and such. I think that it was a very useful project for learning Spanish, especially because I love reading and do it almost all the time.

Presentational Speaking

This semester I worked on a project where the goal was to talk about the experiences of touring another country and the environment of that country. I did a project on Costa Rica. While I didn’t actually experience this it was a good experience to be able to figure out how you would talk about an experience like this in Spanish as opposed to in English. Other projects of this type would be a presentation on a particular type of fashion which was usually paired with picture. The premise for this project was that were a part of a company that was providing fashion advice and outfits to its customers. It was a pretty interesting project to work on, especially considering that I usually don’t worry too much about fashion.

When it comes to this video assignment, I learned a lot about how to describe environments and certain weather patterns that are relevant to traveling to another country. It really helped me with that type of vocabulary, and I also grew in regard to my ability to talk about real world experiences like these which can only help with my ability to hold a conversation. Another project like this that I did was a project on fashion where I posed as an expert in fashion and acted as if I was part of a company that advises on fashion and provides outfits that are fashionable. It was nice to be able to learn more about how to describe fashion because of how useful it is. Everyone has a certain style and being able to describe what you or others are wearing really helps with certain types of communication.

Presentational Writing

A project like this that I did was a project on fashion. In this project I posed as an expert in fashion and acted as if I was part of a company that advises on fashion and provides outfits that are fashionable. It was nice to be able to learn more about how to describe fashion because of how useful it is. Everyone has a certain style and being able to describe what you or others are wearing really helps with certain types of communication.

In this assignment I found it difficult to explain the reasoning for a certain style or outfit. On the other hand, it was far easier to simply describe the outfit itself. As I did this assignment, I grew more adept at the vocabulary needed for it along with the ways to string sentences together to describe an outfit. I also got better at describing the weather because a lot of outfits are more suitable in one type of weather than another type. It also worked as good practice sending an informative message to someone in Spanish.

Interpretive Listening

There were a couple of interpretive listening activities done this semester ranging from listening to a story about Finita as mentioned earlier on this page, listening to a description of activities touring another country, and the video below about the misunderstandings that can be caused by text communication and the values of face-to-face communication in comparison. These videos were usually a few minutes long and provided a lot of info that was usually new in Spanish. They were very useful for interpretive listening.

I found these interpretive listening activities to be very challenging sometimes. This is because more often than not there was vocabulary that I was unfamiliar with in these videos that I needed to try to use the context to understand. With so much info in some of the videos it was useful to learn better how to ignore some things in order to better understand the crucial parts of the videos. These videos covered history of art, went over the types of activities that could be done on a vacation, and in the video above covered different forms of misunderstandings in Spanish related to the modern methods of communication like text. I have found that through these activities I have grown better at understanding the spoken form of Spanish and picking up the important pieces of information over everything else. It was a very valuable experience for learning Spanish.

Interpretive Reading

One of the most memorable interpretive communication activities I read this semester would have to be the story about Finita and her experiences with life in the US after immigrating to the US when she was a child. This was a very good exposure to stories in the Spanish language because the vocabulary wasn’t too far beyond the course level, and it had many images like the one below to support understanding it. I also had many times when studying different aspects of Hispanic culture where I had to try to interpret what I was reading like this.

I found that when reading this assignment, I was heavily relying on the images to understand what was happening. This is because it was a full story and did have lots of new vocabulary I needed to learn to fully understand. Sometimes I had to reread things a lot just to make sure I was reading this story corrctly because sometimes I got a little overwhelmed and started reading on auto pilot. Over time I had to relearn how to slow myself down to make sure I was interpreting what I was reading correctly due to this. I had similar issues when reading articles about Hispanic culture and history that were in Spanish because there were often new words I needed to learn as well as references that would just go right over my head because of being unfamiliar with the context. Overall, it was still a good experience even if it was sometimes rather difficult.