Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Reflection :I enjoyed learning about the culture in Spanish-speaking countries. Spanish 201 has allowed me more practice for my fundamental Spanish speaking skills. I felt more confident speaking out and even improved on conversational Spanish. I hope to utilize the language more in another country to fully immerse myself in the beautiful language it is.

Exploring Culture

I enjoyed learning about the culture in Spanish-speaking countries. It was hard at times to put myself in the shoes of another culture besides the American culture I grew up with, but it was exciting to see. I particularly favored being able to research things we learned in class compared to other countries in South America. Although I didn’t alway understand different cultures, it was fun to be able to see how others live.

Engaging in Communities

Being able to work within your community is highly important to be an effective global citizen. If you can’t empathize with those close to you, then you can’t even do it with those beyond your area. Especially learning a new language, it’s important to learn about the new community who’s language you’re trying to learn. Language is much more than just spoken tongue and should be treated as more than that.

Interpersonal Communication

We utilized a software, TalkAbroad, to further immerse ourselves in the Spanish language. We held two 15 minute conversations with citizens of Spanish speaking countries. These were held at the beginning and end of the semester. The first TalkAbroad was terrifying and I had a hard time staying in the Spanish language, but the second was like day and night. I was much more confident in myself which showed in the conversation and made it easier to comprehend my partner.

Presentational Speaking

In Spanish 201 we did about 3 video/presentation projects where we had to plan and speak about a certain topic. We had a tourist video, a partner video and even a clothing design. https://drive.google.com/file/d/17q6s89IIvO1Q5NwSSznmvkhy12t_aF6P/view?usp=share_link

Each speaking portion was very different. Our most recent one we had to create an argument and solve the problem. This proved to be much more informal and casual. The other one was explaining a tourist destination which was far more informational and formal. I had more of a challenge with the informal one because I’m used to using conventional language in Spanish and not slang.

Presentational Writing

This was definitely my favorite part of the course. I enjoyed being able to sit down and plan what I was going to write. I enjoy more structure and was able to get feedback and add some creativity to it.

Sheyla-D.-La-guía-de-estilo-Carmen

Spanish-15-Project

I’ve attached my two favorites being my writing about President Obama and my clothing suggestions for an individual. I was able to learn more about clothing and accessories from the latter assignment. The historical assignment about President Obama was fun to utilize more transitional terms.

Interpretive Listening

We did a lot of listening assignments in this class. We often had to listen the regurgitate the information to produce an answer.

This assignment was differentiating between the pronunciation of ‘t’. I found it interesting how similar they seemed but the different it made in the entire meaning of the word with one error.

Interpretive Reading

We did a lot of reading and I can admit this was the biggest adjustment for me. My favorite was reading Finita. It talked about her life as an immigrant.

The hardest part about Finita specifically was that a lot of the transition words stumped me. I was trying to understand every word without inferencing the meaning. I often was quite wrong so I had to read it a few times over to understand.