SPAN 101

Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

In Lingro we had many assignments on exploring Hispanic culture. To name a few, in one assignment we learned about nation-wide siestas, which are daily nap or break times. In another assignment we learned about how many people in Hispanic cultures use social media sites and were given examples of how these sites are used. We were also given knowledge about how people address one another formally or informally based on relationship status and age. Some of these assignments were on topics that I had previous knowledge about, but many of them were eye openers to me. I thought it was truly interesting to learn more about Hispanic culture and how different our social norms and customs are.

All of these assignments helped me gather a better understanding of Hispanic culture. I love the way that they value respect in their culture. I think it’s safe to say that in most American states, respect is earned rather than outright given despite age or relationship status. And while it is more of a south American custom to show respect to your elders regardless of blood relation, fewer and fewer generations are adopting these manners. I also really enjoyed learning about siestas and began to wonder why we didn’t have something of the same sort here in America. It made me realize just how much we value work over our own well being at times. We work anywhere from 5 to 16 hour shifts and leave no room to care for ourselves and ensure we’re getting the proper amount of sleep and rest that we need. I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about Hispanic culture prior to this class, but after this class I have an interest to learn more and a newfound perspective of their culture.

Engaging in Communities

I have no videos, photos, or audio clips of me enganging in my immediate and/or global community. I do think it is important to contribute to the community and give back whenever possible, however. Being engaged with and in the community, especially the youth, ensures communal harmony and encourages a safe space for growth.

Interpersonal Communication

For our interpersonal assignments in which were we had to record a video with another classmate about a topic, we had to do so without scripts. At least one person had to be in the camera at all times. With discussion board posts we were allowed to comment on anything that we felt the need to comment on. This could be as simple as “Me gusta tu proyecto!” or “Yo tambien tengo diecinueve anos!”

This is an example of one of the assignments that we had to do. In this project we had to ask a classmate about his or her major, and what classes he or she was taking without a pre-written script.

This assignment was a little challenging. Before filming, the initial problem was remembering the vocabulary to be able to have this conversation. So before my partner and I filmed this video, we looked over our vocabulary words to make sure we were pronouncing words right and did a practice run to make sure our sentences were gramatically correct. Then, when we filmed it the first time, another issue that we ran into was the time limit. The video had to be 2 or 2 and a half minutes long and each time we filmed it it would only run for around a minute and 30 seconds. We had to overcome this by looking up more vocabulary and asking each other more questions to lengthen the conversation and the video.

From this assignment, I learned that I needed to study my vocabulary much more, but my pronunciation skills weren’t all that bad. I knew that next time I had to do an assignment like this that I needed to be prepared with all the vocabulary that I’ve learned so I wouldn’t of had to do so many different takes.

Presentational Speaking

In this class our presentational speaking assignment was about our favorite places on our outside of campus. We had to film a video talking about 3 or 4 of these places in Spanish.

I am unable to include an artifact of this assignment, because I didn’t get around to submitting it. I was doing a lot of things around the time that it was due that prevented me from being a responsible student. I was also really intimidated by filming the video since it required me to talk in Spanish for an extended period of time, filming in multiple locations while speaking, and splicing all of these clips together to make a full video. Next time I will do the assignment as soon as it is assigned and submit it no matter how intimidating it may seem.

Presentational Writing

In this assignment we had to create a profile for Lingro and submit it for peer review. We had to give our name, talk about where we’re from, and describe ourselves all in Spanish.

This was the very first project that we did and it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I had done 4 years of Spanish in high school so it wasn’t hard to use the basic vocabulary since I had prior knowledge of Spanish before taking this class. The only issue was writing the grammatically correct sentences. I struggle a bit with the articles in Spanish so recalling that while doing this project was a bit of an issue. I overcame it however, but correcting myself as much as I could through an app called SpanishDict. To do better next time, I’d definitely study a bit more.

Interpretive Listening

In this assignment we listened to and watched an example video of a woman speaking about her favorite places on campus. This video was given to us as a guide of what to do for our own project which was mentioned above in the presentational speaking section.

Modulo 4: Texto: Mi Universidad

In this video I learned a lot of new vocabulary. From initialy watching the video, I was struggling I to understand some of the other words she was saying in the video. It was hard to decipher at times so what I did was use context clues from words she said that I already knew and her facial expressions to understand what was being said. Then I looked up words that I didn’t know to fully grasp what was being said. I found her facial expressions and vocal inflections very compelling and I realized just how expressive Spanish can be. From this experience I learned the importance of facial expressions and hand gestures and how they relate to understanding what is being said.

Interpretive Reading

In this assignment we were tasked with reading an email from a student to a classmate about nominating a known teacher for an award. We then used this email and other emails like this one to complete assignments and quizzes.

Reading this email was difficult since it included a lot of words that were unfamiliar to me like
“parece”, “cada” and “ganar” just to name a few. So, I had to look these words up to fully understand what was being said. I liked reading the fluidity of the message and getting another look at how to form gramatically correct sentences in an informal way. I also learned a lot of new vocabulary that I can use in my own writing.