Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication

Exploring Culture

Some of the practices that enhanced my understanding of cultural perspectives were the exercises that required for me to review descriptions of the daily lives of individuals from different countries in order to obtain information on why they do things the way they do.

I gained a greater level of the understanding on the topic of the values and attitudes that the Hispanic culture obtain when I could get to know the reasoning behind why individuals from certain countries were able to perform a task and why others couldn’t because it was deemed as ” unformal ” or ” rude “. I also received a lot of clarity on the attitudes and values of the individuals apart of the Hispanic culture when investigating their limits on informal talking to their family and friends. Why it was disrespectful to call out to their parents with a simple ‘ yo ‘and why others sought it to be normal. I got to view the world from another point of view because I was able to get educated on the reasonings behind other people’s choices.

Engaging in Communities

When someone engages with their community and their global community, it always tends to shift in either the negative or positive direction, meaning that an impact could be easily created when one is preforming a task having to do with their area. Attempting to make changes to your life by changing the area you reside in not only impacts you, but as well as everyone around you because it requires you to act on something that others will be forced to put up with as well. This can be socializing with neighbors, classmates, friends, professors etc. As for global community this can be choosing to produce a garden in the area of your choice, starting a support group for those who need it, recycling whenever you see something that could create toxins in the area, and many other things having to do with making a change.

Reflect on your experience and participation in these communities. Include artifacts such as photos, audio/video clips, etc. After every project posted, it was required that we viewed the projects of 3 other students as well as make comments under their posts. Every comment could either consist of advice that the student should take for their next project, a compliment on something that they did well with such as pronunciation or wide vocabulary, or an agreement/ disagreement opinion that there is with a statement made in the image/ video. This allowed for me to interact with my classmates as well as receive opinions from them in order to build my weaknesses that I acquired at that time as well as recognize the things I did well in and vice versa.

Interpersonal Communication

When creating my first project in Spanish, I was required to record a video of myself and another classmate having a getting to know each other conversation. During the conversation we exchanged names, age, hometown, and other basic information such as ‘ what is your favorite class? ‘ . Another time I used interpersonal communication was when I had to make at least 3 comments on other students videos without using my 1st language, but instead by exercising my spanish.

While having a conversation in Spanish with one of my classmates I realized that the area I struggled most with was the pace at which I pronounced words. I would sometimes say them rapidly causing me to miss certain accents or causing me to mispronounce the word. The activities which required me to slow it down and have a face to face conversation such as 2 truths, 1 lie, and speaking of my weekly schedule; transformed my Spanish for the better by teaching me that when speaking in another language, you must be able to pronounce each syllable in order to be understood therefore, it is better to take your time and pronounce everything correctly than to rush through and make mistakes.
Despite rushing through my words, I was very impressed with my wide vocabulary and the amount of time I was able to hold a conversation with my professor during our oral interviews/ in class conversations. I feel as if I excelled in this area due to my way of studying and being able to make connections of every vocab word to items I use on the daily, emotions I feel weekly, traits that describe me or my friends, and places I utilize or have seen. If I could go back and gain greater understanding in this class, I would more than likely be more patient with myself. This would’ve given me a more clearheaded mental in order for me to focus more on what is being said and asked of/ to me instead of always going worrying about my answers.

Presentational Speaking

Throughout the semester one of the activities that allowed for me to portray what I’ve learned so far was the assignment which asked for me to describe an area on campus that I go to or reside in. In my video, I chose to talk about my dorm room in which I described how it was for example; messy ? Clean ? Small/ big room ?, and what I do in certain places of the room.

https://youtube.com/shorts/XSmf7PvM-r4?feature=share

The most difficult part I struggled with when explaining the things I do/ activities I participate in is when I was attempting to make a sentence make sense in English before I had spoken it out loud in Spanish. It was a challenge to be able to speak reasonable sentences by using verbs such as ‘ ser ’ , ‘ hay ‘ or ‘ esta ‘. The way I overcame this situation was by applying the verb to something I do/ know such as ‘ I know my school has a gym ‘ translated to “ yo se Que mi universidad tiene un gimnasio “ or “ hay un gimnasio en campus “. Something I would change from this hard process is the amount of times I mistakingly misused the verbs due to over thinking them. I would spend more time studying the rules of when and when not to use them to have a clearer understanding when I speak rather than only knowing better when writing.

Presentational Writing

Assignments that helped me improve my writing were project one in which I wrote about myself describing how I am as a person as well as the weekly schedule assignment where I had to explain the activities I do everyday, what I do on a weekly basis, what classes I have, and at what times.

At the beginning of the year, I had poor understanding of how words were spelt. I would miss accent marks or use incorrect letters because I was convinced that the letters in English sound like what they are in Spanish. Ultimately, I was wrong, and one way I moved passed this obstacle was by utilizing the words in which I almost always mis spelled or had confusion about in my homework answers or description sentences in order to get myself comfortable enough to use them and be positive that they are spelled correctly. I excelled in my writing area whenever it was time to use descriptive words such as; big, clean, far, organized, fast, honest, tired, friendly, etc. I was able to describe items with multiple words in order to portray my interpretation of something or someone.

Interpretive Listening

An activity I participated in, in which I was doing active listening was when I had to interview my classmate in a video. I asked her questions based on herself and her education, and she would reply back with detailed answers. Whenever she was done speaking, I had to move on to my next question and throughout the entire video I had listened to her speak on information only she knew. Another time where I was obligated to listen was when I attended class and had to pay close attention to what my professor was saying in Spanish because it was related to in class assignments and directions for homework.

Interpretive Reading

During the semester, I learned about multiple individuals from different countries and how things are for them in their lifestyle. I gained knowledge on their schedules of work, what social medias they used the most, as well as how they talk to other individuals.

Something that caused confusion to me throughout my reading process was when I had to sound out and figure out what certain unknown words meant just by using the word and its context around it. I overcame the confusion when I took the time to educate myself on the words separate from my assignments and applied them to real life scenarios. It was very interesting to learn about different cultures as well as the lifestyles of the people who are a part of it. Not only did I gain knowledge on their lifestyles, but I also got an insight on their personalities. This resulted in my growth for comprehension of cultures as well as practices that they utilize in their way of life which I enjoyed getting to know more about.