Exploring Culture

The various exercises in this class such as the Estrategia de investigación activities in LingroLearning gave me the tools to understand other cultures and their traditions. I was given insight into the everyday lifestyles and habits that other people groups have.

The exercises in this course helped me to be exposed to different cultures and their experiences. It was very insightful to see how unique other people groups traditions are, but it also helped me to see the similarities between different cultures. It was very interesting to research what others view as the social norm compared to that of those in the United States. I think that learning about others helped me to also expand my horizons. It helped me see and respect cultural differences and understand how all people groups have the potential to grow and change.

Engaging in Communities

I personally believe it is very important to connect with the people around you. Reaching out to those in your community near or far can make so much of a difference in the world. I love interacting with the people around me and seeing how many differences and similarities we have. I am thankful for the opportunities I have had to interact with people in the United States and in other nations around the world.

In this course I was able to connect to my global community as well as my Old Dominion community through activities such as Flipgrid conversations and discussions board posts. I was able to send written response as well as video responses to my classmates and professor. Activities like these allowed me to get engaged with the people around me. I was able to have conversations with unfamiliar faces and learn more about them. It was a good experience regardless of my dislike of speaking in front of people. I think this experienced helped me learn to communicate better.

Interpersonal Communication

TalkAbroad as well as other interpersonal oral/audio activities were very interesting. I personally was very nervous each time I had to do an oral assignment in this course. The experiences were positive; however, it was very overwhelming. I am grateful I made it through those assignments, and I think I learned a lot from each one.

My fist TalkAbroad conversation I was very nervous and excited; I believe it helped prepare me for my future conversations in the class. My discussion board conversations were one of my favorite parts of the class because I got to interact with my classmates. I was able to review information and provide explanations which helped me in future conversations. My second TalkAbroad conversation went very well in my opinion compared to how I thought it would go. It helped me connect with my partner and have a new experience. For our Flipgrid conversations we were able to record a conversation and interact through videos. I thought that was a very interesting experience and I believe it helped me begin to be more comfortable with having conversations in Spanish. In the future I think I will practice speaking aloud more so that I can get used to pronouncing all the form of the Spanish verbs I learned.

Presentational Speaking

The presentational speaking assignments aligned with some of the interpersonal communications. The assignments allowed for me to stretch myself because I prefer not to speak in front of people.

In this course we made a couple of videos that were shown to other students. In the Flipgrid assignment we were made to respond to questions as well as respond to some of out classmates. This provided the opportunity to speak to others. This experience was good in my opinion. It allowed for practice in speaking to others. I think it helped me improve slightly. There were a few miscommunications but for the most part it was a fluent conversation.

Presentational Writing

The presentational writing work done in this course involved writing on cultural differences as well as traditions and customs of different people groups. The Presentational assignments in this course allowed for me to think deeply on various subjects.

The presentational writing assignments allowed me to engage with my fellow classmates. It helped me expand my understanding of topics. The process was interesting because it allowed me to see other people’s views on certain subjects. I was shown a lot of new information on each post. With each discussion board post I was able to gain new understanding of more topics. I wouldn’t say my writing improved in english, but it definitely helped me improve my writing in Spanish.

Interpretive Listening

The interpretive listening exercise allowed a good opportunity to practice listening.  It allowed for me to hear how to pronounce various terms.

When listening and interacting I learned more about others and about myself. I was shown different cultures and their likes and dislikes as well as shown the many similarities between people. I think listening to a new language is exciting because for me many of the words were new, however when I understand some terms it showed me my growth. Listening allowed me to hear vocabulary that was not given on assignments and word forms that I had not yet learned. The assignments for TalkAbroad, Flipgrid, lingrolearning and from canvas allowed me to grow as a speaker but also as a listener. It helped me understand more terms when put in different contexts.

Interpretive Reading

Interpretive reading in this course was very good for learning how to read and understand the different terms we learned. The reading was very enjoyable because it showed many of the vocabulary terms in different contexts.

The readings in this course were all very interesting. Some assignments required reading only in Spanish or English, however many had both. I think that the reading allowed for the most growth in my process of learning. The readings provide you with a visual representation of what is going to be said and that helped me a lot. Also reading about other cultures was my favorite part, because it provides understanding of others traditions and values.