SPAN 102

​ePortfolio: Integrative Learning Framework

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1. Introduction: My name is Adam Stephenson and I chose to take this course because I needed two courses in a language. I did not take any when I was in high school back in the late nineties and I regret that. I chose Spanish because I know how widely this language is used and I want to eventually learn it and speak it as well as others. I am in the engineering field and understanding Spanish will help open many more doors for me. Most engineering companies are looking for people that can speak more than one language and I know that people of other nations tend to feel at ease and open up if they know that you understand and can speak their native tongue. Plus, the world is such a big and beautiful place and I want to visit Mexico and Spain one of these days. Knowing the language would allow me to enjoy the sights, sounds, smells, and people in those areas a bit better. 

2. Experience: This course has helped me listen more carefully when I am out and about. I am starting to understand and recognize some of the words that I am hearing Spanish speaking people say. Still pretty tough to fully understand these people as they can talk so fast. I recently watched a YouTube video in Spanish and while they were speaking so quickly, I could understand some of the subtitles that were also in Spanish; so I am making some progress in this endeavor. At the beginning of this class, I barely could remember anything from SPAN101 and now, I am starting to remember some words without looking them up. I hope to achieve better confidence in my speaking abilities as I continue thru the rest of the semester. My biggest problem is that I do not make enough time throughout the week to practice more. I really need to force myself to do that and get my wife to practice with me. I want to travel around the world one day with my wife and I want to experience the culture and try new things. I love to cook and I have started looking at more Spanish recipes. We have a Spanish market store in downtown and I am thinking about checking it out to see if they have some of the specific ingredients that are called for in these recipes. I know I could check World Market, but I want to check it out. The Vocabulario sections have been the most useful for me. I get to see what common everyday things are in Spanish. Like la comida (food), desayuno, almuerzo, and cena (breakfast, lunch & dinner), cerveza and vino (my two favorite weekend drinks!), entrada, plato principal, and postre (appetizer, main dish, & dessert, and cuenta and tarjeta de crédito (bill/check & credit card). My favorite foods include los huevos, el pavo, el tocino, el bistec, la fresa, la manzana, el queso, la zanzhoria, and many others. I still need to work on the indirect pronouns and double pronouns as they did go over my head. I also did not know what the word "preterite" meant and I now know that it is meant for the past tense actions.

3. Transfer: I plan on using this language in my engineering career as a way to find new and exciting opportunities to grow in this field. There were a couple coworkers at my current job that could speak Spanish very fluently, but they were let go due to an issue that we had last year. We do have ties to a company that does mass builds for us in Mexico and while they have people there that can speak English well, it would be good if we can understand Spanish too. When I am able to speak Spanish better, I will be able to add that skill to my resume and potential employers will see that. That may give me an edge on my competition and possible better compensation. I know that there are many jobs that could use a bilingual person and if I keep at it, I'll make it.

4. Discipline: In this semester, there was a video that went over the different styles of clothing that Spanish people wear. In the engineering field, we usually dress casual and business casual unless there is meetings with customers or visits. I noticed that most people on the video that were on the job were dressed nicely. I know that when I finish this degree and move up to a salary position that I will be doing some travelling abroad. When I get more proficient in speaking this language, I'll be one of the few people at my job that can communicate without the aid of a translator. It will also give me more opportunities for other employment if I need to change jobs in the future.

5. Integrated Communication

   • Exploring Culture: Their culture interests me greatly. I like that they push education first and that high school graduates need to go through college before they can join the workforce. I did not really have that opportunity growing up and spent the first eighteen years after high school working hard. I was pushed to go back to school and now I am only eight months away from finally graduating! I am happy that I can afford this and I wish this country and the schools could lower the initial cost of education. The food and the recipes sound so good that I am collecting recipes to fill my love for cooking. I want to do the Croquetas de jamón serrano recipe as soon as I get free time and los bocadillos con langosta because seafood is one of my favorite meals. 

   • Speaking and pronunciation: I am still having trouble with my pronunciation of words. I need to start making time each day practicing on specific words and topics and try to make more completed sentences. I know that after I finish my degree at the end of the year, I will have more time to practice my speaking skills and feel a lot more comfortable speaking around other people. I purchased a hard copy of the textbook and I will use it to help me out. I listened to myself doing the audio assignment with the alphabet, words, and sentences and I realized that I do need to practice more often. I need to listen closely to the correct pronunciation of any words and try to repeat it several times until it sounds right.

   • Interpretive listening: The video tutorials helped me a lot with listening to how words were pronounced and spoken. I did not do these in the last course and I realize that I should have. I have done all of them this semester and I am doing better at them. Resources like The Spanish Dictionary have helped me some with correct word pronunciations, but sometimes the word is spoken to fast and it is hard for me to repeat that.

   • Writing in Spanish: I like that this course made me write more sentences and words in Spanish. I am getting much better at using the Spanish keyboard settings and I almost have all of the different keys memorized. I made a notepad document that I like to reference to when I am typing on my main pc and a different one for my laptop. It has helped me out a lot during tests and quizzes.

   • Interpretive Reading: I still have troubles when reading some of the sections in the book. I find myself going through previous sections and doing a lot of backtracking. I am remembering what some words mean, but I have not fully grasped everything that has been taught. I need to continue to practice reading through the book more often and redo the earlier sections too.  

   • Interpersonal Communication: This semester has felt like I was in the English classes that I took throughout high school. I learned about direct object pronouns, reflexive verbs, comparisons, superlatives, indirect & double object pronouns, irregular & stem-changing verbs, impersonal & passive SE, imperfect tense, adverbs, and commands for Tú & Vosotros. Seeing the difference between affirmative and negative Tú commands helped me understand them a lot better. If you want to say "don't speak," you would take hablar, put it in the "yo" form and drop the "o." Then add -es and you would say No hables. The affirmative version drops the "r" and is habla.

   • Engaging in Communities: Discussion boards have been helpful in working with a group of other students. It is nice to read what other people think about certain topics and them replying to something that I have written about. The conversation center has been helpful to me too as it makes me feel a little more at ease knowing that I am not the only one struggling to learn Spanish. There was one person that seemed to know what to say for almost every question that the professor threw at us, which I was a little jealous of. There needs to be more of these groups throughout the semester, but I understand that not everyone has the time to do a lot of these. I am taking five classes and working 50+ hour weeks, so I know the struggles. Link to one of my discussion board posts about what I like to wear in Spanish: https://canvas.odu.edu/courses/182980/discussion_topics/1128324?module_item_id=7563858

6. Self-Assessment and Reflection: I am doing a little bit better in this class. Practicing has been harder due to my schedule, but I am getting through this fine. It is hard to learn a new language when you are rushed with lots of different assignments. I cannot give up on this when I finish this semester. I will pushing myself a lot harder than I did this year. A solid piece of advice to anyone reading this that wants to learn Spanish is to constantly practice and practice with someone else so that you can get more comfortable. Take the time to go through each section and repeat them often. Never give up, because you can do anything if you put your mind to it and I need to follow that too. I did go through the two content reviews that were just posted and I was ok on reading the Span102 portion. When I accessed the Span101 portion, I was surprised by the amount of words that I was able to remember and I have not looked at any of that in several months. That made me feel a lot better and I will practice a lot for my solo conversation coming up after Easter.