Exploring Culture
Products and practices that helped me gain understanding of cultural perspectives was our interactive textbook Contraseña. In Contraseña we use different methods such as listening to audios or looking at different stories or even poems made by Latinx/Afro-Latinx people. We learn about their experiences in school or how they navigate through their lives in general.
While I didn’t have any misconceptions or stereotypes about Latinx people, learning about the culture in general expands your worldview of things. I’ve had background knowledge about Latinx culture already from previous years of studying the language as well as just having interest in cultures.
Engaging in Communities
The importance of engaging in your immediate community and global community is so you know what problems could be occurring around you as well as bigger issues happening all around the world. It’s very important to be educated on these types of things so you can use your voice for people who may not be able to.
Some ways that I participate in engaging with global communities is signing petitions as well as sharing things that need more awareness or that I feel are important topics to bring up.
Interpersonal Communication
TalkAbroad is something that I’ve become familiar with over the past semesters as I’ve been doing them since, my first semester as ODU. I’m currently a sophomore so the latest one I’ve done would’ve been my 8th TalkAbroad. During these we make an appointment with someone from Latin America and have a conversation with them. We also would have conversations with our classmates in class for practice.
I think I’ve definitely grown with these activities. Especially the TalkAbroad because It makes me not as anxious when it comes to speaking with people I don’t know that much. It’s definitely important that I prepare beforehand what I’m going to say before I start because that can affect your score if you aren’t prepared with questions or responses back in the conversation. I think I’ve gotten better with talking with people.
Presentational Speaking
One of the speaking activities that I’ve completed is TalkAbroad. During this activity, we spoke about varying topics with our partners, and we got to ask them questions and they ask us some in return. I sadly can’t upload the audio due to technical difficulties.
The challenges I faced is my nerves honestly. I get nervous when it comes to doing TalkAbroad because I sometimes am not sure how I should respond back to their questions or if I may something wrong at it affects my score. If I were to do these again I’d definitely make sure to study the material. I think I do well with coming up with questions to ask my partner but struggle with what I say back.
Presentational Writing
Some written presentations that we completed were our compositions for our projects. We would have to complete a video as well as a composition for our projects that could range from 200-300 words. These could range from talking about poems to talking about influencers and university culture.
This was my most recent composition I completed, and I think it really shows my growth. I tend to better when I edit it after because I get a little nervous when having write in person. I get my nervous due to the class time being limited so I tend to rush and not get my thoughts together. But when I do corrections, I get to think a little more about what I wanted to say.
Interpretive Listening
Within our textbook Contraseña we complete various types of activities including ones where we have to listen to a speaker and then select the best answer. This particular activity involved talking about questions.
Different things I’ve heard throughout this semester was about questions, university, colors, and how to pronounce words. I enjoy listening to audios because it gives me a sense of how to say the words if I need to say them myself in a video or conversation with another student. It can be hard at times since Spanish is not my first language so depending on how fast the speaker is talking, I may not be able to catch up on everything they’re saying.
Interpretive Reading
One story that we read this semester is this young Mexican-American boy starting college called Viaje a la Universidad which highlighted his troubles he had to overcome with not being from the U.S. He was also away from family while being here and he felt like an outsider at the college.
It was a little hard to understand since I don’t know a huge amount of Spanish. But I do know enough to understand what was going on in the text. I think it’s good to read stories from other marginalized groups to get that sense of understanding other people’s POV’s and have empathy. I have definitely grown because I know that even if I don’t understand everything that’s okay as long as I can look for words I know and get the gist. I won’t be perfect learning the language and that’s okay.