Exploring Culture

There were many assignments in this course that helped to show me the importance of learning about different cultures. For example, our assignments such as the Estrategia de investigación helped me learn and research different cultures traditions.

These assignments helped me remind me of the need for understanding of others. It is important for people to learn about others in a respectful and appreciative way. These assignments helped me see how other cultures view their societies. There are many misconceptions about other nations, however if you study other nations cultures, many of those misconceptions would not be so present. I respect other cultures and our differences, so learning more about other people groups was a very fulfilling experience for me.

Engaging in Communities

In this course we were given the opportunity to connect with others in our community both near and far. I was able to have interesting conversations with others. I believe it is very important to interact with others and allow yourself to learn from them.

I think it is very important to connect with others in your surrounding area as well as those who are far away. These assignments gave me the opportunity to connect with those who were both near and far. I liked being able to connect to others who are also learning. It was also very interesting meeting people in other countries. These assignments helped me grow a little more comfortable with interacting with new people.

Interpersonal Communication

I was given the opportunity to interact with people outside of the country and learn about their experiences. I had conversations about various topics. There were many conversations about topics that were agreed on and some that talked about differences. I was given the opportunity to talk about differences I had with others.

I was given two opportunities to utilize talk abroad. In each conversation I discussed different subject matters. However, in both conversations I learned things that we had in common with one another. I was also able to have conversations with others through discussion boards where we had conversations about things ranging from art to clothes and many other things. I believe these assignments helped me grow a lot. The forced me to communicate with others even when I was not confident in what I was saying. In the future I would try to practice more as well as have more confidence in my communicating.

Presentational Speaking

I was also given the opportunity to speak in front of others in a presentational manner. We spoke in a recording and posted it so others could see. These assignments provided me with the opportunity to grow in my speaking skills.

I do not like public speaking. No matter how many times I have to do it I am always nervous about it. This course allowed me multiple opportunities to speak for others.  I believe I am getting better as I am given more opportunities to speak. I think in the future I would practice more before each time I have to present. However, I do think that I got better at presentational speaking as the course progressed.

Presentational Writing

Much of the writing I had to do in this course was for discussion posts which answered prompts. I liked those much better than the speaking assignments because it allowed me to write rather than speaking in front of others.

The writing assignments allowed me to improve at communicating ideas. It helped me improve in understanding the material that we learned during each module. I also liked having other students interact with what I wrote. I was also equally as interesting to see the different things other students wrote and what they learned from the assignments. The presentational writing was much better for me as a method of communications about what I had learned.

Interpretive Listening

The interpretive listening portion of this course was very interesting. It was one of my favorite parts of this course because it allowed me to hear the words that we were learning.

The listing portions allowed me to interact with the course material in a different way. I liked being able to hear how others spoke the material. I think it helped me the most because it helped me connect what I saw with something that I was hearing. I believe it helped me grow as a student and Spanish speaker. I do believe I still need a lot of improvement; however, I think it helped me grow.

Interpretive Reading

The interpretive reading portion of this course was very interesting. It allowed for me to learn a lot of new information about different cultures.

For some assignments we were able to read about the different culture’s history. I thought it was very helpful to learn the deeper meanings behind many of the traditions of parts of other cultures. I think that the interpretive reading helped me grow a lot. I was shown a lot of new information that will help me in the future and will add on to what I have already learned in the past. Reading each assignment helped me in different ways, for example the assignment of reading on art helped me learn mor about the artists and their work.