Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

The products and practices that have helped me understand cultural perspective are the discussion board questions and the talk abroad assignments.

The different questions on the weekly discussion board assignment have allowed me to see how the Hispanic culture is. For example the discussion board question “Mis actividades deportivas”, there was a video to watch where there were people asked what their favorite sport is. It was interesting to see the most common sports that people like in the Hispanic culture. Before that assignment, I assumed that people in the Hispanic culture like soccer. I don’t know of many famous people of Hispanic descent who play any other sports than soccer. It was different to see that people like every sport. It helped me work through the stereotype of Hispanics only like to play soccer.

Engaging in Communities

It is important to engage in the community because we are all living in this world together and we should all treat each other equally and with respect. There is so much going on in the world such as homelessness, racism, stereotyping, and mental health issues. By engaging in the community you could help someone in need. Even if it is just a simple hello, it could help make someone’s day. It is helpful when someone in your community can point you in the right direction and help you. For example, if someone is at a grocery store and they just got to a city where no one speaks Spanish and they don’t know very good English, and they are trying to pay for their items. The person at the cashier register tells them their total is twenty-five dollars and they only understand Spanish, there could be someone near that speaks or understand Spanish and they could help them. It reminds me of the saying “it takes a village to raise children”, it is the same thing as it takes a village to help build a good community. If we all take the time to engage in the community and help each other out we can have a better community and a better world to live in where we show love for everyone and decrease the amount of hate/ not caring for each other in the world.

Interpersonal Communication

There were two TalkAbroad assignments that I was required to do for this class. The assignment was where we have a real conversation with someone in a different country to practice the Spanish that we have learned and to see if we could learn new vocabulary words. The discussion board questions were a question in Spanish every week that the class has to complete. They consisted of a video to watch and then answer a question or just a question based on the topics we were learning that week.

The TalkAbroad assignments made me really nervous before I actually did them. I have a hard time initiating conversations with people that I do not know, so to have a conversation with someone in a different country with only spoken Spanish was nerve-wracking. There were times that I wasn’t sure how to say certain things, so I tried to tell them how I knew how to. It was a good experience though. I was impressed that I was able to understand most of what my partner was saying. And if I was having a hard time understanding them, they were able to say it in a different way. I would make sure to practice a lot more before I attempted to have a conversation with someone just to make sure that I don’t stumble on words. While I was having the conversation, I wasn’t as nervous. Especially since I was able to understand what they were saying. I was able to overcome the challenge of letting my anxiety get in the way and just went for it. I excelled at being able to have conversations. For the discussion boards, I also have a hard time writing the answers to the questions because I know that other people will see what I write and have to comment on it. I just completed the assignment and eventually became comfortable with people commenting on my posts.

Presentational Speaking 

The presentational speaking activity that I completed was the Gramatica Gender Agreement quiz. This assignment included reciting the alphabet letters and words on a slide and recording myself.

I don’t like the idea of recording myself it makes my anxiety go up. But I just went for it because I knew it was an assignment that I have to get done. I was also having an issue pronouncing the letter W that I kept messing up when saying the W letter in Spanish. I ended up recording myself multiple times until I got it right. I would practice more before I started recording myself to make sure that I can pronounce the letters and words correctly.

Presentational Writing

There were assignments in contrasena, which is a website that consisted of assignments to practice Spanish. There was an assignment that had a picture of a family and I had to write how I thought the members of the family were related to the couple sitting in the middle of the picture based on how they looked, by age and facial features and descriptions of how they look. There was also another assignment that I had to write about what kind of sports I like and which ones and why all in Spanish.

The assignments that I had to write in all Spanish were hard at the beginning because there were words that I did not know how to say so I tried to look it up. But it got easier as I started learning more vocabulary words from the different assignments and sections of practice in the contrasena website. What I could do better is look back onto the other assignments and vocabulary pages to see if I could find the words I did not know how to say or spell in spanish.

Interpretive Listening

On the contrasena website there were assignments where there was a person talking in Spanish and I had to click the vocabulary words that I heard in the conversation. The vocabulary words were in preterite form or future form. I also had to listen to conversations with people and I had to pick the correct answer to the questions they said or pick the best answer to what they were talking about.

It was challenging because they talk kind of fast in Spanish and since I am still learning I had to play the conversation multiple times to make sure I understood correctly what they were saying. I feel like I have grown throughout the activities because I can now listen to the conversation once and understand what they are saying instead of playing it back multiple times like I did when I first started doing the assignment.

Interpretive Reading

A book that I read in Spanish was The very hungry catapillar or in spanish is La rguga muy hambrienta. I read this book to the toddlers that I work with at my job. We have students that speak Spanish so we try to incorporate Spanish books in the classroom.

It was a little challenging saying some words that I haven’t learned how to say yet but I was able to sound it out and figure it out. I like reading books in Spanish to children because they are interested in the story because we will read the book in English and then in Spanish. The more I read the better I get at it. It was also nice to be able to read words that I have learned to say and what they mean.