Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

The Latin world has many cultures and during this course, we got to learn about the different regions and their cultures. We worked with 33 cultural collaborators from all over the Spanish-speaking regions. We learned about the use of Social Media in Cuba, Columbia, Guatemala, and Spain. We also learned the different ways in which “Tuteo” (you) is used in Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, and in the Spanish-speaking community in the United States. Naps are also cultural in the Spanish-speaking regions. Universities and university lifestyle in regions like Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, and Guatemala. The last to explore was people admired in the Spanish-speaking world. Collaborators from the United States, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica spoke on their admired people.

It was wonderful getting to learn about the different cultural practices from region to region. There’s a lot of similarities and few differences. It was highly impacting to learn that in the Spanish-speaking world, most universities don’t have student housing and therefore have to stay at home with their parents to manage expenses or stay in an apartment. I learned that in Guatemala there are no student residences which means the only options are to either stay at home with your parents or find an apartment you can live in. In the United States, students have the option of either staying home, staying in an off-campus apartment or staying in the dormitories. Through this course, I also understood that the use of social media is prominent in almost all of the Spanish-speaking regions explored my misconception that Cuba completely had no internet was erased; it was proven that they do have internet connections just not in their homes and it is a resource that is limited. I learned that even though these regions have the same language their approach to certain things is different.

Social-Media

Tuteo

Siesta-Naps

Universidad

Admirable

Engaging in Communities

It is important to engage in your community. It not only gives you a chance to meet different people but it also provides you with a new advantage of learning about different types of people, their backgrounds, etc. Through engaging in your community you develop a broader perspective in life and also develop communication skills.

My community was my classroom. It was definitely a wonderful experience. My purpose was to learn Spanish but in doing so I got to learn more about other students through class discussions, class projects, and other assignments.

Interpersonal Communication

I did many interpersonal communications. I had some in class with my partners and also one out of class in which I had to do a short interview with another Spanish speaker who wasn’t part of the class. There were also recordings that I had to respond to in Spanish. We also watched videos of people communicating with each other.

Learning through interpersonal communication increased my Spanish communication skills. Throughout this class, we did audios, recordings, in-class reading, and writing activities. When we would have projects after posting them our fellow classmates would make a comment or two asking questions or making a statement. We would ask each other questions in Spanish during class hours and also write down questions we would want to ask our partners for the class. Each assignment and activity was a challenge but the deeper we went into the course the much better it got. At first, I knew nothing about Spanish not even the basics but now I can comprehend much better. The most difficult part for me was constructing longer sentences but I have been working on that and I see some improvement. I would say what I excelled at was reading, by watching or listening to anything Spanish and repeating it so I could learn how to pronounce it better.

Text-conversation-between-friends

Presentational Speaking and Writing

I made a video showing my campus. In the video, I talked about three places that I liked, the library, my dorm, and my room. I also talked about my living conditions, and how many people I lived with. I also wrote two essays/compositions.

In the video, I walked around the campus showing my favorite place while describing them in Spanish. It was very weird walking around campus and speaking a different language while holding a camera to my face. I jumbled up my words sometimes but I tried my best to get back on track. I had to think a little before speaking so I didn’t sound fluent but I will practice and relearn certain words so I sound better next time.

I wrote two compositions, the first one was about me. I spoke about my name, date of birth, where I am from, age, preferred social media, favorite color, etc. The second was me explaining my daily activity. I excelled at the first composition the second one was not the best, I didn’t use correct forms of the verbs. I also wrote a letter nominating someone I admire for the best person award.

Proyecto-cinco

Interpretive Listening

I listened to the audios, videos, and the professor. This greatly helped in learning how to pronounce the words better

I listened to audios between students and professors, friends, parents and their children, roommates, strangers interacting, and more. Sometimes recordings would be too fast so I would have to replay it over and over again to hear it properly. With listening, I learned that you have to really pay attention to sounds to get it right. In Spanish, we learned words that are spelled the same in both English and Spanish but pronounced differently

Interpretive Reading

In this class, we read letters, text conversations between friends, a letter between parents and children, emails, etc. They were meant to help us with basic understanding.

Even though Spanish is a language very different from English, it is also one of the easiest of many other languages. There are certain words in English that are the same in Spanish and there are certain words that based on looking at it you can tell what it is. These words are called cognates and because it is recognizable it makes it easier to interpret what it means. There For example, Family and Familia. Family is the English word and Familia is the Spanish word, looking at the world Familia it is easy to indicate that it means family. Another example, editar and edit. There are also false cognates which are words that look like an English words but don’t have the same meaning. Example, asistir, when looking at the word asistir it is easy to think it has the same meaning as the English word assist which is to help, but in actuality, asistir means to attend.

Cognados

Cognates

Carta-de-nominar