Exploring Culture

Having a son who is of mixed race ( Caucasian and Hispanic) and now having grandchildren who are also biracial, understanding the culture of the people of Mexico and Spain is very important to me. I have visited Mexico many times, but every time I learn something new that I take back home with me. I love showing my grandchildren their heritage and cannot wait until they are older and can accompany me on a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula where their family is from.

Engaging in Communities

My future goals of working as a Guardian Ad Litem makes my understanding of different community structures imperative. While the safety of all children is important, so is understanding the community and cultural aspects of each individual family. In the area I am interested in serving, 45% of all households speak more than one language at home and 15% speak Spanish as their primary language. Being able to effectively communicate with families in my community is vitally important. Presently, I work with our local domestic violence shelter as a crisis counselor. I have used what I have learned in my Spanish class to be able to work with women over the phone to help get them out of dangerous situations.

Interpersonal Communication

In Spanish 101, we did multiple discussion boards about ourselves, our experience in college as well as about our families and hobbies. We also had a two dialogues with another classmate in Spanish.

In the first discussion post we talked about ourselves in English. In the next three discussion boards, we needed to include at least two sentences in Spanish using the words we had learned in our previous lessons. As I moved through the lessons, I was able to correctly compile sentences.

For the recorded dialogues, my partner and I both were able to become more comfortable having a simple conversation in Spanish. We were even able to “think on our feet” during one of our conversations when neither of us knew the Spanish equivalent of an English word . I find as I speak the language more and listen to others, I am picking up most of a conversation and am able to actively participate.

Interpretive Listening

My favorite parts of each of our lessons is the music that our professor adds for us to listen to. It is fun learning a new language but it’s even better when it’s set to music.

The first recording we had to listen to I have to admit, I only knew about three words. As the lessons went on, however, I found myself understanding more and more. I would write down the words in English so that I could better understand what I was listening to. I also watched Spanish television programs using subtitles so that I could listen to the words in Spanish and match them in English.

Interpretive Reading

The class provided many opportunities to read in Spanish so you could broaden your understanding of the language. The sections on Culture were the most helpful for me.

When I first began reading the sample paragraphs, I felt a little overwhelmed. As I continued on, using the words and phrases we were learning in class, I was able to build each lesson on what I had learned in the previous lesson. The hardest part of reading in Spanish would be the changes in the structure of phrases that deal with location and time. They are structured so much differently than English.