Spanish 102 at ODU

Exploring Culture

In most cultures, food and gathering is what makes a culture. I believe it’s important to engage and learn about different cultures so we are more aware, understanding, and accepting of people’s differences. Practices that helped me practice and gain understanding of cultural perspectives were the videos that had to be watched before each discussion board post.

Overall, I learned about different foods within cultures and how food is centered around both large and small gatherings. I think American and Spanish culture have many similarities, but differences as well. For example, in the last unit we discussed how gender stereotypes affect children when determining what career they would like to pursue when they are older. In the video we watched, many children stated that police officers and doctors are careers for men and teachers and dancers are careers for women. I think the United States still views careers as a “mans job” or a “woman’s job.” It is important that we teach children that they can be whatever they want no matter their gender. Another discussion post was about medical care in the United States vs. Spanish countries. In the passage we read before the discussion post, it was explained how it is easier to receive medical care in Europe than America. I am glad I was able to read and review these resources to help me better understand Spanish culture.

Engaging in Communities

Family is important in Spanish culture. I think it is important to have family around to support you through anything. In a discussion post, we were to explain our families and how they help us and our favorite things to do together. I love celebrating with my family. It’s always a good time when we are together.

Interpersonal Communication

Seeing the Talk Abroad assignments on the schedule made me nervous at first. Before the Talks, I have never had a conversation in fluent Spanish before. Both of my conversation partners made me feel comfortable, were kind and able to guide me through the conversation. They also helped me when I got stuck on a pronunciation of if I forgot what a word meant. I am glad that I had the experience of speaking fluently with someone whose first language is Spanish. I believe it helped me a bit through this course. I learned that it is hard to understand an unfamiliar language when it is spoken at a fast pace.

Discussion Board posts also helped me along Spanish 102. I enjoyed reading my classmates perspectives on different topics that were discussed in the chapters. I definitely think my vocabulary has improved and has been something I excelled in. I know a lot more words now than I did in Spanish 101. Something that was difficult for me in this class was verbs. I am able to slightly understand them now, but had no idea what I was doing at first. Preparing and reading the vocabulary words on Lingro Learning helped me a lot as well. Next time, I plan to study my pronunciations and spelling more than I have. As well as completing assignments earlier to get them out of my hair.

Interpretive Listening

Interpretive listening activities that we had to complete were the Final Discussion and vocabulary pronunciation. The Final Discussion with the professor was similar to the talk abroad. During Talk Abroad 1, my partner and I discussed familia and jobs. Talk Abroad 2 is when I discussed my favorite foods and health and fitness with my partner. I think the Talk Abroad sessions slightly helped me with my Final Conversation. I had to listen to the questions being asked so that I was able to respond in the correct way. Something that was challenging for me was forming sentences correctly. I enjoyed the pronunciation activity because it was fun to hear how the words were correctly pronounced versus how I was pronouncing them. I definitely think I need to become more comfortable with speaking fluently so that I can improve my Spanish speaking in the future.

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Interpretive Reading

This semester, there was a lot of interpretive reading on the exams. It was very difficult at first being that I took Spanish 101 two years ago and did not have a refresher before this class. There were articles about healthcare in the Dominican Republic, gender equality in the workplace, and questions passages that had to be read in Spanish before moving on to the summary questions. The most challenging thing for me was thinking a word had the same definition in Spanish as it did English because the spelling was similar. I find it interesting that in Spanish, words and may be 2 to 3 words whereas in English words are just one. I definitely think my main takeaway is to read carefully and use context clues to figure out what the sentence is saying. It can be hard, but it’s worth it when I get a passing grade. Because of these reading assignments, I think my vocabulary has gotten better.

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