Exploring Culture

The cultural activities were always very interesting to read about. My favorite cultural activity reading was for the clothing unit which was unit 11. They talked a lot about body positivity and how it influenced their fashion choices and I thought it was very interesting. I also thought it was cool how they talked about what styles were in. I enjoyed the cultural sections because they gave me a glimpse of what life is like for people in other countries.

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in communities whether it be local, online, or even in a school or workplace is important because it lets you connect, interact, and learn about those around you.

Interpersonal Communication

The TalkAbroad assignments were great in more ways than one. Of course, they did cause me some anxiety in the sense that I was worried I would not understand the language enough to hold a conversation but they challenged to me think both critically and quickly to keep the conversation going. Something I liked about TalkAbroad was that I was able to engage with someone from another country in real time. I liked being able to learn what life is like for them. Another thing I liked about TalkAbroad was how you could be more spontaneous with how I spoke. I personally do not enjoy reading from a script so I found the TalkAbroad assignments quite enjoyable. During this semester I also had other assignments that I had to speak in. For these, I had to have a specific script prepared so that way I would be able to touch on all of the details that I wanted to include. The assignment where we had to record a timeline of an art museum or art piece was quite challenging for me not because I could not understand the assignment but because I had lost my voice and was struggling to speak. The main way I overcome challenges when speaking in another language is I practice my pronunciation of complicated words over and over before I record my presentation. That way I am more familiar with the word when it comes time for me to say it.

Presentational Speaking

Like I said before the speaking assignments this semester was quite a struggle for me since I had lost my voice. For example, I did an assignment on el museo del oro and as the video went on the worse my voice became. There was not much I was able to do since my voice was practically gone so I am pretty disappointed that I was not able to my ability to speak Spanish.

Presentational Writing

Writing wise I struggle a bit when it comes to using past or future tense. Unit 16 in LingroLearning required a partner and I to write out a script for a conversation about a miscommunication and then create a video of us acting out that scrit. When I comes to writing in a different language I often worry if what I am writing will make sense to anyone who is reading it. Another assignment that required me to crate a script was for unit 14. In unit 14 I was tasked with creating a script about el museo del oro and for me the most challenging part of that was making sure that I had the right congugations in the right places.

Interpretive Listening

The main listening activity that comes to mind was from unit 12, the ecotourism unit. During this unit we listened to exerpts from El mochilero verde and had to figure out what was going on in the conversation by listening. The main problems I had with these listening activities was understanding how some of the words being spoken were supposed to be spelled when actually taking notes of what I was listening to. Spelling is already a challenge for me in English so naturally to was twice as hard to do in Spanish. I did enjoy this unit though because it challenged me to think critically of what was actually being said. In the end I eventually got the hang of my listening skills and this lead me to doing well on the LingroLearning assignments.

Interpretive Reading

Unit 11, the clothing unit was more reading based. Luckily for me this unit was very straightforward for me because I was already familiar with most of the vocab in this unit from previously learning it through Duolingo and elementry/middle school. I have never struggled too much when it came to reading in Spanish unless I was completely unfamiliar with the vocab. Also since reading is such an important aspect of a learning and understanding a language I would find myself subcontiously trying to absorb more information through a reading format.