Exploring Culture
In my class and around the world, discussion board assignments provided an excellent opportunity to explore culture. In discussion board 6, we explored the importance of family structure in Hispanic culture. We learned about the different roles family members play within a family. The mother is often referred to as the caregiver, while the father is referred to as the provider. As a result, I gained a better understanding of different values represented in Hispanic culture, through the different structures and roles typically played. Additionally, I learned about machismo and how this view places men above women. Seeing things from this perspective revealed to me the advantage men have over women in Spanish-speaking countries. This led me to appreciate the U.S. for having equal views and holding men and women to the same standard in marriage
Engaging in Communities
Engaging in communities is of significant importance. It is imperative to learn about the diverse cultures around us. Not only do we get to see how others live, but we get insight into their values and the things that make them happy. Also, this enables us to make connections and share similar experiences. When you are in need, it is nice to know you have a strong community by your side.
Above is a screenshot of my reply to a discussion board. In my reply, I mentioned what I admire about my classmate’s diverse family structure.
Interpersonal Communication
Talkaboard is a fantastic form of interpersonal communication that allows you to converse with other Spanish speakers around the world. Talkaboard allows you to pick out your partner and has many beginners recommended. Furthermore, you participate in a 15-minute conversation about the topic assigned to you by your professor. Additionally, talkaboard records your conversation for grading, and also so you can listen and reflect on your past conversation later.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a9YETjP8cipB9MTuZzG4YcJiHg5AxTdX/view
The link above takes you to a conversation I had on Talkaborad with my partner Yoselin Brizuela. In the conversation, I learned a lot about the different food and hobbies she loves and as well a little bit about her family. The first talkaboard I did I was very nervous and often stumbled upon my words. But in my second conversation with Yoselin, It felt very natural and easy to converse with her. What helped me was practicing engaging in conversations with my Hispanic family, to become more comfortable. I believe I excelled in listening and interpreting what she was saying. I learned that I am better at listening and understanding than I am at speaking Spanish in a conversation because I get nervous and say the wrong thing. Next time, I will focus more on paying attention to correct endings in hopes to fix grammatical errors while speaking.
Presentational Speaking
A form of presentational speaking we used in class was flip grid. We often had a short assignment where we would complete missing questions and answers in a video presented by our professor. Then we would be able to ask a question of our own to the class while engaging with our classmate’s ideas and responses.
In the link above, I engaged in a conversation with my professor where we spoke in Spanish, about different activities and sports we do to maintain good health. Although, participating in this assignment required much listening and making sure I understood what she was saying. After a couple of plays, I was able to understand what she was asking and the correct way to respond in my video. I think the most difficult part of the assignment was finding a question my professor didn’t already ask pertaining to the topic.
Presentational Writing
In the course, I felt like a lot of our presentational writing involved discussion boards. This was our way of communicating different ideas with other classmates. Sometimes we would be required to form 1-2 sentences in Spanish influenced by the topic.
In the picture above I discussed the video we had watched. We were told to write one answer in English and another in Spanish. Regarding this assignment, I discussed gender equality and stereotypes in the U.S. and Spain. After writing short sentences in Spanish on other previous discussion boards, it eventually got easier to form sentences in Spanish. The difficult part was including any grammatical abbreviations in my writing. I believe I excelled at using the right conjugations and spellings in my writing.
Interpretive Listening
A lot of interpretive listening activities came from our textbooks or quizzes. We often had to correctly choose the vocabulary from the list that they said in the audio. Also, in our textbook we would listen to a clip of audio to either determine what was said, point out different verbs and adjectives to conjugate or respond to different questions.
Here is an example provided by our Textbook. In this example, we had to listen to the audio to predict what the speaker was saying in order to answer certain questions. The challenging aspect of this assignment is often translating what is being said at a fast speed. I overcame this challenge by listening to the audio repeatedly and picking out words I understood to determine the meaning. I absolutely loved assignments involving listening activities it helped me be able to pronounce words correctly, and expand my fluency.
Interpretive Reading
On my own, I read different articles on this website called “Liguna.com”. This website allows you to read short stories in Spanish and answer questions pertaining to the article.
In this example, I read an excerpt about someone talking about their small family. After reading the article, I answered questions about the article in Spanish. Although this example was not difficult, there were articles that were more advanced and had words I did not understand. I overcame this by writing down words I didn’t know, and looking them up in my Spanish dictionary later. This exercise really helped me expand my vocabulary and my reading skills.