Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
I grew up in El Paso, Texas where the majority of the population is Hispanic and living in this area helped me to gain an understanding of the different perspectives that come with the different cultures. I also gained a better understanding of cultural differences while working in LingoLearning on the Exploracion cultural sections. One of these sections had us look at how the time of siesta, nap time, is evolving in Spanish-speaking regions. This activity had us read about the idea of a siesta in the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina. We also chose a Spanish-speaking region and did our own research on if that area incorporated siestas in their work days.
Reflection: These exercises and activities I completed within LingroLearning helped me to gain a deeper understanding of why some actions/events occur in Hispanic culture like: siestas, low attendance of secondary school after high school, and the different degrees of formality in the Spanish language. Since i did grow up in a Hispanic hometown there was nothing I learned that challenged my worldview because my worldview was molded by both Hispanic values and attitudes as well as the culture of a white and Hispanic household.
Engaging in Communities
There are so many different ways to become involved within your community whether that’s volunteering at a local food bank, animal shelter, hospital, or an orphanage. You can also pick up trash at local parks or in your own neighborhood. Engaging within your community can help to provide a very important set of skills and traits such as: interpersonal communication skills, time management, proactive attitude, and a good work ethic. These are all traits that are beneficial for your personal growth as well as professional. If you have the opportunity to engage in the global community it can help to open your perspective on different cultures as well as help your networking.
I have participated in multiple volunteer opportunities within my community ranging from cleaning an animal shelter to packing food boxes for Food 4 Hunger. The most recent event I participated in that helped me engage in my community was cleaning Noland Trail in Newport News, Virginia with my Airman Leadership School Class. This was a great way to engage with my community because my class was filled with people from different cultures so we got to learn a bit more about each other as we cleaned up the trail. We also got to engage with other people who were walking the trail that day and we had one couple ask us “why are you doing this” and we simply replied, “as a way to give back where we can.” While volunteering at my local park it helped to remind me that a simple gesture can be appreciated just the same if not more as a large one and helped to remind me to have humility in all I do.
I have also been lucky enough to help a community on a global scale; back in 2016 I traveled to Cebu, Philippines for a mission trip. While in the Philippines I got to engage with a church congregation about our shared belief, helped distribute clothes/toys to children, and provide a free cooked meal. I had also learned that the native language of Tagolog in the Philippines was derived from Spanish so they utilize some of the more common terms. My time volunteering in the Philippines helped show me how to effectively communicate with someone even if we could not speak the same language (ex: hand motions) and helped to open my mind to the differences in our cultures, specifically how Philippinos greet anyone that is seen as their elder by bringing the elders hand to their forehead as a sign of respect.
Interpersonal Communication
During this course we have engaged in multiple interpersonal communication activities ranging from discussion boards or responding to one another’s videos on Flip Grid. One example of a discussion board I have completed was in January 2023, we were given the task of watching a specific video about social media and then provide our own opinion on social media’s pros/cons and any benefits we personally gain from utilizing it.
Looking back on the different assignments we have had, I believe most of them can be labeled as spontaneous and planned communication events. Spontaneous because we do not know the actual topic we will be discussing but also planned because we do have a certain amount of time from learning the topic to actually submitting the assignment. In my Flip Grid assignments that consist of me having a conversation with my professor there were a lot of struggles on my end. In the beginning, I struggled a lot with the speed that Spanish is spoken at and I also had a lot of difficulty with trying to memorize the different variations of ‘ser’ and ‘estar’. I continued to study the guides given to me and re-watched the videos in Lingro Learning to help me gain a better understanding of the material. Since the beginning of class, I believe my confidence in my pronunciation has improved as well as the time it takes me to understand the questions she is asking or statements she makes.
As for discussion boards, I do not believe I had too many struggles or difficulties completing them since I had ample time to prepare and most have been in English. Seeing as this is a beginner Spanish course, I am grateful the discussion boards are in English because I do not think I would be able to have done so well writing complete posts in a language I am barely learning. Although if it was decided to enforce Spanish discussion board, I would have to study harder and study material we have not gone over yet to ensure I can complete the DB correctly. I have been able to see the improvement of my formulation of thoughts/information when writing my discussion board posts.
Presentational Speaking
There have been two different types of presentational speaking assignments throughout this course. One was to record yourself saying specific words and the other was to share who your favorite person is on Flip Grid.
In one of our first recordings we were assigned, it required us to practice a set of words in Spanish and then record ourselves saying them. This assignment I remember being slightly difficult due to the fact that I was not confident in the pronunciation of some terms even after practicing them before hand. To help me overcome this challenge I simply kept listening to the recording time again until I had the pronunciation as close as I could.
For the video below, this is where we shared who our favorite person is and described them with some of the vocabulary we just recently learned. I did not experience too much difficulty with this assignment since I was able to utilize my notes before recording to help me build my presentation. For the next assignment, I would try to not use my notes as much to help prevent myself from becoming too dependent on them in my learning.
Presentational Writing
In this course there are not many presentational communication writing assignments except for our ePortfolio, which you are reading now. Within my ePortfolio, I have shared all of my different experiences and struggles I have encountered during my time in SPAN101F. I have provided artifacts showing my progress throughout the course and have provided examples of different assignments I was assigned.
I have never had an assignment like creating my ePortfolio through WordPress before and it was very difficult at the beginning. Luckily, I was provided many great resources and guides on how to complete this assignment which made completing this so much easier. For my next Spanish course, I believe I will be able to provide an even better product since I have already worked with this.
Interpretive Listening
Throughout this course, we have had multiple assignments where we listen to a recording of words, sentences, or paragraphs in Spanish and are tasked with answering a set of questions. For example, some recordings would have us learn the pronunciation of words and then practice speaking the words we just learned from the recording before submitting a recording of ourselves speaking the words. Another example is when we would watch a Youtube video on certain customs and write a discussion board based on what we watched/heard.
In Lingro Learning there were plenty of activities that had us listen to recordings but a more specific example of one is the activity where it contained multiple paragraph recordings and based off those we were supposed to answer a question about the situation or story. These activities I found a lot more difficult than the ones within my course because even though it is a beginner Spanish course they speak at a very fast pace which makes it a bit harder to pick up on key words. I would then have to listen to the recordings a couple times to counter not being able to understand most of it on the first try. Another example is in the beginning of the course we watched a video on how someone who grew up in a Spanish speaking region introduced themselves to a stranger and needed to listen for key phrases as well as different reactions. At that time it was difficult understanding the whole conversation but I could pick up on key words/phrases. I overcame this difficulty by re-watching the video as many times as I needed to for better understanding. Since the beginning of the course, I do not find these listening activities as difficult but I still struggle and sometimes need to pause the recordings to take a minute and break them down to better understand.
“Learn Spanish (Greeting + Introduction) – Lerne Spanisch (Begrüßung) – Aprende Español.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Oct. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWaBQ-ZUm-c.
Interpretive Reading
This course has provided us multiple variation of interpretive reading activities in both Canvas and Lingro Learning. We have read articles and websites and stories. A specific example of interpretive reading is in Lingro Learning is reading about the differences in people’s lives, education, culture based on the countries they live in and then answer a set of questions based on the reading.
The most challenging part of these activities was the fact that the whole reading is in Spanish; seeing as I am still learning it makes it difficult to understand everything being talked about in the reading. To help me overcome this difficulty I would utilize the resource of spanishdict.com to help me understand words I have not learned yet. I have learned how different each Spanish speaking region is from one another even though they are on the same continent. I believe each assignment has helped me grow by teaching me new words/phrases that I have not learned in the actual class and it allows me to better understand assignments in Canvas.
