Exploring Culture
I learned a little bit about the culture from this class. I learned most of the things about the culture from the reading assignments. I also read something online one day for class too.
I feel like the book definitely help understand Hispanic culture a bit better. I also found out there is some similarities with the cultures. Like America has open air markets just like some Hispanic countries. I also learned that some countries like to take naps and that there lunches are heavier than ours. I feel like it changed my world views a little bit. They are basically like America but with differences. It made me step back look at things as whole, rather than 1 thing.
Engaging in Communities
It is definitely important to engage with the community. It keeps you from being ignorant to change. It also can be fun and expand your horizon or growth. It can even build stronger relationships and eventually lead to peace.
Interpersonal Communication
Talk abroad and in class assignments helped me interact with people. The reading and writing assignments was very different and made me really think. I may not be the best with this but I try and learn from my mistakes.
These speaking things was challenging sometimes. I had to think on my feet and coming up with things to say is hard sometimes. Each assignment made me better and I learned from my mistakes. I ended up practicing with a tutor later on and that helped a lot. I feel like I exceled at understanding for the people for the most part, but the tutor helped a lot. I learned that nobody is perfect, and you can make mistakes and I will try to get more practice with this in the future.
In this small sample for talk abroad I talked to the guy and talked about things like clothing, weather, stuff we like to do etc.
Presentational Speaking
I did talk abroad and speaking assignments with the class. I feel like this was challenging. I still feel like I need more experience talking to people in Spanish.
Some of the challenges I had with this is sometimes mixing a word up or pronouncing things differently. I overcame this by listening to the words on the homework and repeating them back. I was able to excel at understanding them sometimes. I would definitely have more practice done or rehearsal before speaking to people in Spanish.
This is a small sample of some of the talk abroad I did. We talked about daily routines and food.
Presentational Writing
I did a bunch of writing for class. We also had a lot of writings for homework. The writing was easier than speaking it.
For the most part I think is the strongest part for me. Doing a lot of writing assignments for the homework really helped. I was able to write out things and get feed back from the grading system. The compositions were also another thing we did for classes. The only thing I found difficult was forget some vocabulary. I overcame this by going back and studying a word or phrase.
¡Orlando, Florida es fenomenal! Primero, Orlando Florida está en los Estados Unidos. Hace sol y buen tiempo todo el año. La temperatura es de 90 grados. El hotel de Disney es muy grande. Mi familia tiene dos habitaciones dobles en el hotel. La piscina es muy limpia. Me gusta nadar.
Además, viajamos a lugares en la camioneta. Hay muchos restaurantes para comer en Disney World y Universal Studios es muy divertido. Los parques temáticos tienen mucho que hacer.
This is the very first writing assignment we had for this class. I talk about my trip to Florida.
Mis vacaciones en Georgia
Primero, en el primer día mi familia y yo llegamos al hotel a las seis de la tarde. Mi familia estaba muy cansada. Nosotros comimos a las seis y media después de poner las maletas en las habitaciones. Yo nadé antes de ducharme. Nosotros nos acostamos a las nueve.
Luego, el primer y segundo día, nosotros nos despertamos a las ocho. Fuimos a la casa del tío. La fiesta fue muy divertida. Jugamos juegos y comimos mucha comida.
Finalmente, fuimos a casa. Nosotros necesitamos un día para viajar en camioneta. Ir a casa fue my aburrido.
This was my second paper I wrote about my trip to Georgia.
Interpretive Listening
We had some listening assignments for home work. For the most part I got what they was saying but sometimes I didn’t catch things right away. These was assignments would say a thing and give a choice on how to respond or what they said.
These was one of the challenging ones for me. A person speaking to fast it was really hard to understand that person, so I usually ended up repeating it back getting it the second time. I feel like sometimes I overcome it and sometimes I don’t. I ended up just practicing with the homework and it made it better. What I learned is sometimes you might not catch things but don’t give up and keep trying.
Interpretive Reading
There was a lot of readings assignments we did in class and the homework. This was things was usually sentences or stories. We did some reading aloud.
This was not bad for the most part. These activities usually involved things like feel in the blank or interpreting things. The only thing I found difficult is remember every word from these assignments. I ended up going back and reviewing some of the words. The most interesting thing is that you piece together what it is saying. I feel like I have grown from these assignments.
