Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
Throughout this course, we had different cultural learning opportunities in each chapter to learn about different countries and their customs. While learning about different countries and the different societal norms in these countries, one practice that was important was remaining open-minded to different lifestyles.
This helped me understand different attitudes and values in the Hispanic culture because it showed me different aspects of life from numerous countries around the world. Learning these different things, such as what is accepted socially, helped me understand how different the Hispanic culture is from mine. For example, I learned that in some countries, same-sex relationships are not allowed, nor are they socially accepted; however, in the United States, same-sex marriage and relationships are legal and accepted. I also learned the importance of family in Hispanic countries, and perceive them as closer than families are in the United States. These practices broadened and challenged my worldview by allowing myself to be more informed and educated of different cultures around the world. I also strive to travel in the future, and this emphasized the need to be socially aware of different cultures while traveling to fully understand the places I aspire to go. I have always thought that remaining open-minded is an important trait to have because everyone has different experiences that influence them, and these allowed me to fully understand and affirm my belief in this concept of open-mindedness.
Engaging in Communities
Engaging in communities is an important aspect of life and I strive to improve on this in the future. While I work at a retirement home and have also tutored others in Algebra and Spanish, I have not contributed a lot in this aspect of life. However, this does not mean I do not strive to do so in the future. When I become a nurse, I really am looking forward to opportunities to travel to different countries in Latin America where I can work as a nurse and help those in need. This is one major reason why I wanted to study Spanish and also Latin American history; to gain an understanding in both the language and history of these countries. In Latin American History, my essay topic focused on healthcare in Latin America, and how certain countries struggle with supplies and staff, which I hope to be able to make a difference down there in the future.
Interpersonal Communication
TalkAbroad is a learning tool used to advance verbal communication skills by making an appointment with a native Spanish speaker to discuss different topics learned in class. Throughout the semester, we participated in three different conversations to showcase our ability to hold a conversation with someone speaking primarily Spanish. Other activities included different conversation prompts throughout the units for us students to help each other improve on speaking with others in Spanish.
The TalkAbroad assignments were truly the most challenging of the interpersonal communication assignments. Even though there were prompts and preparation tools, ultimately it was to show that we could hold a conversation with a native speaker. There were topics that were provided, but there was no telling what would be asked or the order that things were asked, which is challenging at this level of Spanish because I personally take a little more time to process what they are saying before responding. The first conversation was the hardest because I was so nervous, but by the final conversation, I was more comfortable and did not stutter as much due to nervousness. I also realized how understanding my partners were that I was not great, but I was still trying, and they helped me along the way.
As for the discussions with classmates, I was a lot more comfortable. Even though I am not extremely familiar with everyone, we were all there to learn Spanish and help each other grow. This allowed for a judgement free zone with constructive criticism and assistance with vocabulary that we were all learning. With these assignments, I excelled with grammar and struggled with vocabulary at time because I did not spend a lot of time remembering the vocabulary lists. Next time, I would spend more time studying and writing down the vocabulary to retain the information more.
Presentational Speaking
With a majority of the writing assignments we completed, we had to present our projects. We also had to complete several projects where we videotaped ourselves talking about specific topics to increase our fluency in Spanish.
This was the first video project I completed in this course. The biggest challenge I had to overcome was making mistakes and correcting them in the video. In the beginning, I kept retaking the videos to try and make it perfect, but after a few attempts, I realized that making mistakes and correcting them as I was speaking was normal at this level of Spanish. When speaking with my professor about it, she even encouraged it because we even make mistakes when speaking English at time and correct it and move on without any thought. She helped me realize how common this is in a native language, so doing this in a secondary is even more common and shows improvement. Ever since this first video, I continued making videos without retaking them to show that I am actively recognizing, improving, and refining my skills in the Spanish language. I believe I excelled in pronunciation, in a sense of understanding that there are different ways of pronouncing certain vowels in English versus Spanish.
Presentational Writing
Throughout Intensive Beginner Spanish, we had numerous projects we created to display our knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of the unit. We created different pamphlets, advertisements, and compositions that had to deal with different topics, such as: clothing, sports, diseases, and more.
El-Club-de-FutbolEarlier in the semester, we were told to compose an advertisement to get people to join a sport club. At the time, I thought I did really well on the project. Looking back on it, I believe this project could incorporate a lot more vocabulary and grammar that I did not know prior to creating it. I also looked at others and believe I could have involved more picture and less words, making it look more of an advertisement with brief, simple phrases to grab attention rather than using a lot of words to influence others to join.
Christine-RouseThis project is from the end of the semester and I believe it is one of the best projects I completed. Our prompt was to read about the clients and choose someone to create a wardrobe for said client based on the normal weather in their city and what they prefer to wear. I enjoyed this project because I love clothes and I was able to connect with it on a personal level. It was easier incorporate numerous units of vocabulary because it focuses on weather, friends, professional situations, and clothing. Since it was one of the last units, it was also easier to conjugate in different tenses since I touched up on some of the grammatical challenges I was struggling with. I also believe that this project matched more with the prompt, and I became a lot more in tune with what the prompt was asking. Since it was set up as a written explanation to a client verbalizing what they want, while previously, the sports flier could have been more pictures that seemed more inviting to join a social group on campus.
Interpretive Listening
Many of the interpreting listening activities throughout this semester came from both TalkAbroad and listening to other students that presented during class. TalkAbroad was the main activity that involved interpreting listening, as it was important to listen as a partner talked and figuring out ways to respond to them.
The main challenge in interpretive listening this semester was listening to partners from TalkAbroad speak and understanding in entirety what they were saying. Since they are native speakers, there is a lot of vocabulary that they know that we do not entirely understand. It was important understand what they were saying, so it was common for me to ask them to explain further so I understood exactly what they were talking about to continue the conversation. It was super interesting for me to listen to native speakers talk and realize that there were other words, or synonyms, in Spanish to describe certain activities in their country. In the past, I have struggled immensely since I do not learn this way; however, natives tend to speak a lot slower to non-native speakers, which I appreciated immensely during my TalkAbroad conversations. I have grown with each activity because I became more confident with each conversation since I knew each partner I had would not judge me for messing up or forgetting words to describe what I intended to say.
Interpretive Reading
The main form of interpretive reading we indulged in was when we had to research different countries to learn more about their cultures. Each unit involved a cultural exploration section with a different topic to explore in different countries.
In this activity, we had to research a country and how they incorporate siesta into their daily lives. I researched Colombia for this activity and chose an article that gave an explanation on Colombia’s way of incorporating siesta. These were challenging because we were researching in Spanish, which incorporated a lot of unknown vocabulary since the sites were more advanced. I overcame this difficulty by skimming to find words that I understood from the unit and other units prior to at least get an understanding of what the article was saying. I found it most interesting that even though I could not understand the articles entirely, I was still able to understand enough to respond to the prompts. I have grown in some aspects with these assignments, as it has made reading in Spanish not as overwhelming as it was in the beginning.
Another interpretive reading activity was Spanish books our professor read to us that correlated with the information we were learning. We were able to read and listen to our professor read it aloud at the same time, which was interesting and engaging. It allowed us to see how different grammar lessons were incorporated in conversation and text, while also expanding our variety and testing our knowledge of vocabulary. It helped me a lot to read at the same time as listening because I am a kinesthetic learner and have trouble understanding with audible learning methods.
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