Exploring Culture
In English, give a brief description of products and practices that helped you gain understanding of cultural perspectives. Remember not to make value judgments or comparisons of better/worse or right/wrong. Different is just different. You are talking about your growth of understanding.
Then, in a short paragraph write your reflection. Some questions that may help you process your reflections are: In what way did these products and practices help you better understand values and attitudes in the Hispanic culture as well as your own? How did these products and practices challenge your worldview? What challenges did these perspectives reveal to you? How did it cause you to work through a stereotype or misconception you had and cause you to view the world from a different perspective? Use specific examples.
culture.docxEngaging in Communities
When learning a new language it is very important to engage in the immediate community. Even if you do not have people around you to do so the internet is a great place where you can interact with the community.
I did not have much experience with meeting people or engaging in the immediate community unfortunately, but the internet was a great second option. I really wanted to know what was life like in Spain, and to do so I went to Youtube and found some great videos.
Interpersonal Communication
We did many interpersonal communication assignments this semester. Some of the interpersonal communication assignments we did were TalkAbroad, Interviews with our professor and interviews with classmates. I feel like these types of assignments are what really help me a lot with my Spanish during the semester.
We did two TalkAbroad this semester and I was very nervous to talk to a native Spanish speaker. The TalkAbroad assignments were very helpful and exposed me to people who helped better my Spanish. Another type of interpersonal communication we did was interviews with our classmates. TalkAbroad and speaking with my classmates for one made me more comfortable speaking Spanish. Secondly, these assignments also broaden my Spanish vocabulary. I excelled the most with the TalkAbroad because it gave me the opportunity to talk to native Spanish speakers, which I never had the opportunity to do before.
Presentational Speaking
While in Spanish 102 we had many activities incorporating interpretive reading. One of the examples is a project we had to do where we had to imagine we already graduated college and were working at our dream job.
In this assignment we had to answer questions as if we were in the future. The assignment was not very challenging for me because I knew the vocabulary and grammar that needed to be used. The most interesting part of the assignment was imagining myself at my future job. I feel like my Spanish vocabulary really grew from this assignment.
Presentational Writing
One week during the semester we were talking about how we maintain good health, and during this week we had to make a flyer. For this I did an ad for how to maintain good mental health.
For this assignment I made a powerpoint on how to maintain good mental health. If you memorize the vocabulary and know how to use grammar in Spanish the assignments are very easy. I made sure I knew the new vocabulary words each week. One thing I think I could do better on is my grammar when writing.
Interpretive Listening
In this class we watched videos that were in Spanish. Watching videos in Spanish really helped with not only speaking the language but also understanding it. One video I can remember we watched was a video about what sports people enjoyed.
One thing I found kind of challenging about watching the videos is that native Spanish speakers talk much faster and it is a bit harder to keep up. In order to keep up I would have to use context clues in each sentence. I found it really interesting how natives pronoun certain words. On thing I took away from this assignment is that I will never talk like a native but that is okay as long as I keep practicing.
Interpretive Reading
While in Spanish 102 we had many activities incorporating interpretive reading. One assignment this semester was to read a medical flyer an answer questions about it.
In this assignment we had to read a flyer about how to stay healthy during flu season. It was a bit challenging at first, but to overcome that I used context clues like surrounding words in the article. I also used pictures that were presented, so I could fully understand what the text meant. One thing I think I can do better is read the articles more slowly.
