Exploring Culture

LingroHub was a great product that helped me gain understanding of cultural perspectives. LingroHub is an internet platform that was used via Spanish 101 where our class was required to submit homework and projects. Certain practices via LingroHub revolved around researching different life practices, social media engagement, and academic processes that occur in Spanish speaking countries.

The product of LingroHub and the practices that came with certain assignments revolving around lifestyle and common engagements in specific Spanish speaking countries helped me understand different values and attitudes in those cultures. LingroHub helped me understand practices in Spain such as Siesta, which is a practice that takes place in Spain that is a nap people take usually in the afternoon as a mid-day break. I thought it was a really cool thing to learn about because of the origins of Siesta and how it benefits the human body. Another interesting thing to learn about was the popularity of certain social media accounts in regards to different Spanish speaking countries. Another cool fact that I learned throughout completing LingroHub assignments was that behind Mexico, the United States is the second biggest Spanish speaking country in the world. That is because of the fact that so many people migrate to the United States which results to a large portion of those immigrants being fluent Spanish speakers.

Engaging in Communities

The value and importance of engaging in your intermediate community and the global community is very important. It maintains relationships within the people that make up those communities. It also provides hope for the families and individuals that are enduring hardships. Furthermore, your community is what you make it, you also are apart of that community, that means that you have to engage in those communities to make it what you want.

Certain experience I have had in participation of engaging in my community is street clean-ups, protests, and state voting. My fraternity conducts multiple street clean-ups in the ODU campus and in Norfolk neighborhoods. The street clean-ups are revolved around us cleaning trash and repainting certain areas of the campus and surrounding neighborhoods. In regards to protests, there was a BLM (Black Lives Matter) protest that took place in Virginia Beach that I was apart and supportive of. It was so important to the community to come together and protest the injustice that African-American people endure in the state of Virginia, the United States, and several countries across the world. Lastly, participating in voting for state elections was very important in regards to the change I wanted to see in the practices and mindset of government officials in the State of Virginia.

Interpersonal Communication

There were three interpersonal communication activities that stick out the most to me in this course. One interpersonal communication activity that was beneficial was the second interview I did with my professor. The second activity that benefited my Spanish communication was the second project I submitted this semester via LingroHub. The third activity was the required responses on other classmates project submissions and the discussion board that was required for the first E-portfolio submission

The second interview was very beneficial to my communication skills because it required myself to ask my professor questions and have him answer them on top of answering his questions. It also helped me solve any doubts I had about how to answer certain questions because my professor is fluent in Spanish. The second project I submitted via LingroHub was also very beneficial to my interpersonal communication skills. That is because it was a recorded conversation with a fluent Spanish speaker. That conversation was beneficial because I was able to hear the differences in pronunciation with a Spanish speaker from a different country. Where I struggled with the second project was being able to keep up with the fast responses from the speaker, since Spanish was a fluent language for them it was sometimes hard to keep up with the pace of the speech. Lastly, the responses and discussion board within my classmates was beneficial because I was able to pick up on things they were better at writing than I was within our communication with each other. I grew within each of those assignments and activities by being able to broaden my Spanish vocabulary and confidence in communicating with Spanish speakers.

Presentational Speaking

This semester I was given three different presentational speaking activities that were interviews to complete in front of my Spanish professor. The first two interviews were less intense and focused more on catching my mistakes to be able to speak with no assistance on the final interview of the semester.

The interviews were very beneficial to my confidence of being able to speak Spanish without looking at vocabulary or other assistance. In the first interview, I was able to answer basic questions regarding my schedule and when I do things at certain times. I believe I did very well in responding to those questions, some challenges I went through was pronunciation of certain words in Spanish but in totality I answered the questions correctly. The second interview was a bit more difficult for me because the content was a bit harder. One obstacle I ran into was being able to ask sufficient questions to my professor, which was a requirement for this particular interview. However, I believe I excelled in responding with proper pronunciation for the questions I was asked. By the time I completed the last interview, I was able to confidently use ser and estar in proper forms and flow conversation topics from one to another in regards to the required information I had to master for this particular interview.

Presentational Writing

There were several projects that I was required to submit in LingroHub that were presentational writing pieces. The first project of the semester revolved around writing basic information about myself. The third project revolved around making my weekly schedule and writing a paragraph about my obligations and what I do in the week.

In the first project, I was able to really break the ice with my Spanish speaking skills by writing and posting basic information about myself like my name, birthday, age, email, and phone number. I enjoyed that assignment because it required you to to use proper forms of Ser, Estar, and Tener. The third project was one that I believe I excelled at very much. I wrote a very big paragraph about my weekly obligations and day to day activities. I can attest that to having a very busy schedule this semester, however it helped me broaden my Spanish writing to match up with my busy schedule. After being able to understand basic forms of ser, estar, and tener in the first project ; I was able to comfortably use ser, estar and tener in the paragraph I wrote for the third project.

Interpretive Listening

Being able to interpretively listen to the Spanish language was one of the most important factors that went into this course for me. LingroHub had several assignment that included a Spanish speaker saying recorded vocabulary words and having to match them. Also, there was a recording that included a girl speaking about her college campus and what she likes and dislikes.

Being able to interpretively listen to fluent Spanish speakers in LingroHub was very beneficial. Some challenges that came from it was keeping up with their pace of the language. Fluent Spanish speakers tend to speak the language very fast, which is common for all languages that are the first language for people. I overcame this difficulty by replaying the sounds and pausing it frequently to make sure I was hearing things correctly. What I found most interesting about the voice recordings and videos were the pronunciation and expressions different people used for certain vocabulary. It helps you narrow down the definitions of vocabulary words because good and bad facial/voice expressions mean the word or statement is either good or bad.

Interpretive Reading

Interpretive reading activities I completed in this course are result of reading other classmates submitted projects, such as the calendar paragraph, introduction project, and several LingroHub activities.

Reading other classmates paragraphs regarding their weekly schedule was very beneficial. Since I understood the material in that unit well, it was like extra practice reading other peoples paragraphs. It also helped me certify what I was doing right and make sure to stay away from the mistakes I saw other people make. The introduction first project was also a great reading tool because it helped me break the ice on the correct and incorrect basics of the Spanish language. Lastly, LingroHub had several assignments that required you to read a full passage or conversation and fill in the blanks with the correct vocabulary and forms of ser, estar, and tener. I will be honest these were the most challenging LingroHub activities for me. I overcame this difficulty by double checking my vocabulary to make sure it made sense in that area of the passage. What I found interesting about this activity was the proper and respectful ways people are supposed to speak to each other in Spanish. I was able to take away proper vocabulary, use of ser, estar, and tener, and respectful language use in Spanish.