Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
The Talk Abroad assignments in this class were the perfect opportunity to help explore the Spanish speaking culture. It is not everyday that you get to have a conversation with a fluent Spanish speaker. This opportunity was not only fun, but also extremely helpful with deciphering accents and other details that come with a native speaker. Overall, I enjoyed this task a lot and learned from it as well. Below is the recording of my first Talk Abroad where we discussed things like family, where we live, and food.
Engaging in Communities
Engaging in our immediate and global communities is extremely important when it comes to learning. In order for us to learn we must interact and experience new things including languages. Engagement allows us the connect with each other on a more meaningful level which gives more life and happiness to all involved.
The engagement in Spanish 102 that really helped me was the discussion boards. They allowed my classmates and myself to exchange thoughts and ideas, which helped us better understand each other and the cultures we were learning about. I learned and enjoyed this activity a lot. Below is an example of one of our discussions.
Interpersonal Communication
Like mentioned in the “Exploring Culture” section above. Talk Abroad allowed us to communicate with native speakers via zoom. We also had conversations with Professora Mitchell which were also via zoom. Both of these communication assignments helped the growth of my Spanish speaking tremendously. It is one thing to read and write Spanish, but to have conversations with people who are fluent is another. While they were nerve wrecking and out of my comfort zone, I am grateful to have had these experiences because they truly made me better. I learned a lot from doing this and was even able to correct my accent some.
Presentational Speaking
One of the presentational speaking activities that I completed in class was the Flip Grid activities. These required us to video ourselves speaking without notes.
Although a bit challenging, these allowed me to venture out of my comfort zone and practice speaking. Speaking out loud and being able to hear the recording after is really helpful to see where you need to improve, and where you’re doing well.
Presentational Writing
In Lingro-Learning we completed written portions where we explored other countries cultures like their different food and family values. We also completed written portions during exams where we would read a paragraph then summarize what we learned from it. This is also a helpful way to learn because it forces you to memorize where accents go and how to spell the words.
Interpretive Listening
We did several interpretive listening activities this semester. During our exams we had exercises where we had to listen and then answer questions. We also listened to several videos for discussion boards.
These activities allowed me to get used to native Spanish speakers accents which is a huge hurtle when learning a new language. This was helpful alongside our Talk Abroad assignments as well. Below is an example of one of the videos we watched.
Interpretive Reading
We did many interpretive readings in this class which were really helpful. Several times we read articles to discuss with our classmates on the discussion boards. One article was, “Importance of Family Structures in Hispanic families”Links to an external site.. This not only gave us material to discuss, but also allowed us to learn extra things about Hispanic families and their culture.