Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

My Spanish-speaking skills have grown a lot since starting this course. When we first started I barely knew my numbers and simple greetings, but now I can ask many types of questions, name many things, count to 100, and even describe people. At first, I had trouble with accents and spelling so that took up time on exams but I’ve studied more and improved and now finish my exams more quickly.

Instructions

Exploring Culture

Of the things in class, watching Cultural videos on VHL helped me understand different cultural perspectives, I was mainly aware of different cultural perspectives before this class from friends, anthropology courses, and common knowledge however

VHL helped me understand values and attitudes in the Hispanic culture through first-hand examples and basic facts. I’ve also observed friends and realized how their culture differs. Getting to know other cultures really challenged my worldview at first because I always thought what I and the people around me did was normal and if it’s not like that it’s weird but then I realized it’s all just perspective. This showed me that people who don’t have a common culture might be regarded as “weird”. It caused me to work through a misconception because I realized there is no normal, they all are different and depend on different factors Use specific examples. I used to think that Indian girls being in an arranged marriage was weird but then I realized they grew up on different religious values that shaped their culture.

Engaging in Communities

It’s important to engage in your community so you can have a positive impact on people and the environment. It’s also healthy to have human contact. I’ve enjoyed my participation in my community, I’ve eaten at local Hispanic restaurants, and have helped other students with problems

Interpersonal Communication

During the semester I have engaged in many interpersonal oral/aduio activities such as:

• communicating activities with classmates
• understanding audio and reciting it
• Interviews with the teacher/classmates

When it comes to communication activities they were mostly unplanned and allowed me to become comfortable with what I was talking about. It typically started slow but after a while, I would become more fluent.  Understanding the audio and reciting it was difficult and taught me how to really listen to what I hear and even connect dots between words I didn’t hear since it was so fast. Interviews with students and teachers did the same thing as communicating activities: made me more confident, comfortable, and fluent. I was good at interviews I guess since I had time to prepare and get it down. I learned that Spanish isn’t as hard as it looks, next time I’d be a bit more comfortable and confident initially.

Presentational Speaking

I had a presentational speaking activity Earlier this semester about a free-flowing conversation with a friend.

What was most challenging about this was the intimidation of the assignment and just getting comfortable speaking Spanish with others. but I over came this with practice.

Presentational Writing

I had a presentational writing assignment earlier this semester where I had to write an email describing my family to a friend, and I read Spanish brochures and had to explain the meaning of them.

Writing the letter helped me write better in Spanish. I really only knew how to write short simple sentences, my first paragraph felt very choppy but after practice, it became smoother. The brochures helped me try to come to understand something I didn’t exactly know how to read using contextual clues. This was kind of difficult but I quickly got the hang of it. I was good at inferring what word meant that I didn’t know. I wouldn’t do anything different next time.

Interpretive Listening

I had to understand audio and recite it. also, I had to watch cultural videos and answer questions that were in them.

Understanding the audio and the videos was difficult and taught me how to really listen to what I hear and even connect dots between words I didn’t hear, since it was so fast. Listening to the audio over and over and really understanding how certain words sound helped me overcome this obstacle. Nothing was interesting about these. It has been easier to understand the audio as it goes in so I believe I grew better listing skills.

Interpretive Reading

I had to read Spanish brochures and understand the information it was sharing.

The brochures helped me try to come to understand something I didn’t exactly know how to read using contextual clues. This was kind of difficult but I quickly got the hang of it with practice. I found it interesting that so many Spanish and English words are alike. I haven’t grown much with each assignment like this but I am more confident about it if I had to do that in real life