Throughout this semester in Spanish 102 I have been able to significantly increase my ability to recognize new words and phrases as well as gained the ability to read basic dialogue and interpret spoken conversation. Although I am not fluent in the language, I am aware of where my weaknesses lie and where I can continue to improve my skills.
Something that resonated with me regarding culture is the Spanish affinity for food. Growing up food was how my family communicated, and coming from and Italian family, food was bountiful and it was expected you finished your plate. Seeing the love put into the foods made in Spain, Mexico and Southern California was familiar and admirable.
Community is the key to the success of many aspects in life, not just on a large scale such as business, but also on a smaller scale as a parent.
In this course, community was always a factor in the Flash Cultura videos. Whether it was about tourism in a big city, on a dinner date or at the beach with friends, having a community big or small was relevent.
In my experience, a thriving parental community has been one of the most helpful resources to me. Especially in today’s climate, having a small community of other mothers to reach out to and to be available for has been invaluable.
The different forms of interpersonal communication utilized throughout this course included having the ability to converse with Spanish-fluent speakers via the internet, the ability to listen to dialogue and learn to dissect its content, it included writing and responding to classmates, allowing us to familiarize ourselves with common terms and phrases.
Each of those experiences taught me something different. The area I thrived in the most was reading dialogue and answering questions related to the material. Although I struggle with conjugating words, I am now able to read and recognize them in context to comprehend written conversation. Secondly would be listening to dialogue. Again, when I can listen to complimentary verbs and adjectives, I am able to comprehend what is being said, generally. Where difficulties arose for me were the Talk Abroad conversations where the conversation was spontaneous and I could not listen to the conversation quietly and analyze, instead I had to interpret and respond on the spot. I had a difficult time trying to translate what was being said, while simultaneously trying to translate my thoughts into Spanish. I did discover that I needed more practice with actively speaking and utilizing Spanish with others to get more comfortable with conversation.
As you will see below, this class required me to film a short cooking video, where I had to exercise my presentational speaking skills.
In this video I chose to prepare a turkey and cheese sandwich. Creating a dialogue around a sandwich was slightly challenging however, it was fun to play around with names of different, but common, foods, like slices of bread. Making a single take video left little room for error and at times I had to pause to organize my thoughts. It was humbling to recognize the challenges in translating our languages.
Our primary interactive writing assignments were writing and responding to blog posts. The challenges I faced there was reading through the different responses and trying not to be repetitive. As the course progressed I was able to expand my own ideas and have broader responses to the prompts.
Ultimately, I am grateful for this course and for the ability to progress my language skills. My journey is not over and the desire to speak fluently is stronger now than when I started because I have seen the growth I am capable of. In the future, I would prefer to learn on-site as I believe that will help in a more constant verbal practice of the language.
Bienvenida a mi cocina!
Sandwich de pavo y queso.