Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

At first, I was taking this class just for the credits and so that I could get the summer financial aid, but throughout the course of the class, I found myself enjoying the class and learning a lot. Going from only know “Hola” and “1-10” to now knowing how to keep a basic conversation going and understanding a lot more words and phrases in Spanish I’ve seen so much growth, ending up really enjoying the class, and got a good grade to overall improve my GPA. One of my main weaknesses in the class would have to be my pronunciation and still not being able to roll my R’s.

Exploring Culture

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So I haven’t had much experience in Spanish culture but one thing I really do enjoy is going to Mexican restaurants. The picture above is from one of the times I went out to eat with two of my sister and we got a drink and some tacos that were extremely tasty we went to a place called “La Herradura Mexican Restaurant & Cantina”. Something I find funny now is that our waiter was bilingual she spoke really good English but she could switch over to Spanish at the drop of a hat and I barely understood her when she did that but it was really cool. If I would’ve been taking this class at the time maybe I would’ve been able to hold a simple conversation with her in Spanish or at the least understand her more.

Engaging in Communities

Sadly I don’t have any engagements in the communities dealing with Spanish.

Interpersonal Communication

The picture above is a screenshot of a 3-minute conversation with another one of my classmates. in the conversation, we talked about our schedules, what days we have those classes, and what we like to do in our free time. This was the first time I had a conversation in Spanish for that long it was kind of hard during the conversation to try and keep everything smooth but after we finished the conversation I was super proud of myself and my partner. Also not to mention we got a pretty good grade on the assignment. Something that I’m taking away from the assignment is to slow it down when I talk until I really get a full understanding of the language. Also during this interview, I struggled with understanding some of the things my partner was saying not because he wasn’t saying it right it was because it was very new for me. The way overcame that was by talking to my partner more and asking questions until I had a better understanding and felt more comfortable with it. the difference between this interview and the interview with the teacher was that I was a lot more nervous with my teacher than my partner.

Presentational Speaking

This summer we did this class virtual so there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for presentational speaking but during the class zoom call, we did have times in the lecture where the teacher put us in breakout rooms and we had to presentation to our partner and also during class, we got called on to answer questions in front of the class. This really took me out of my comfort zone not only was a speaking a language I didn’t fully know but I also don’t like speaking in front of a lot of people so it was a 1-2 punch for me. With that being said it wasn’t all bad even when I was wrong or didn’t say the word right no one talked down on me or anything like that everyone was very helpful. this has shown me to not be scared to speak up in class when I think I know the answer even if it might not be 100% right.

Presentational Writing

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I’ve attached a copy of our “Composición” assignment above. This paper was basically a breakdown of the people that I live with, we had to write it in the form of an email. In the paper, I talked about my mom, brother, and our dog. the approach that I took on it was like I was writing to one of my homeboys back in Richmond it turned out not too bad. All of the “Composicion” had a lot of challenges with them if I’m being honest but even though they were probably the hardest assignments they helped me learn the most. I took a lot of pride in being able to write a whole paper entirely in Spanish. Now yes the rough draft was really a rough draft it all came together in the final.

Interpretive Listening

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The photo above is one of our flash “cultura” assignments. These videos were used for our “competenica cultural” homework assignments. the assignments went over a range of different aspects such as family, studies, Encounters in the plaza, and soccer. The great thing about the picture that I have attached above is that this was the assignment that was connected to family and like I stated on either my home page or all about me page I’m a huge family person so this was a big one for me. I liked these because not only did it use the vocab of that lesson it also threw in a couple of words and phrases that aren’t in the vocab but are needed in everyday conversations. It was pretty easy to understand the hard part was just trying to slow it down in my head while they were talking which means I had to keep playing it over and over again. In the end, I appreciate them they all helped me get better with each assignment.

Interpretive Reading

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In the photo above is an example of one of our “lectura” assignments. in this specific assignment, they were talking about a university pamphlet that was completely in Spanish. These assignments called for us to look at pages in the textbook and break down what was going o that page and we had to answer questions like do they, math class, where is the university located, and etc. what I liked about these assignments was that I really had to sit down and force myself to understand what was going on in the assignment. I had to force myself to understand what was going on instead of using others as a crutch to stand on. on the flip side something that I found difficult about these assignments was just how long they took I’ve never been the type of student to have to sit down and take more than an hour on an assignment so that was very new for me. Overall yes I feel like I’ve grown with each assignment